


come home yesterday

by customrolex



Series: come home yesterday [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Partial Canon Compliance, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:00:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 68,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4269408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/customrolex/pseuds/customrolex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>'It seems pretty—intense,' he admitted. He waved a hand vaguely over the meeting space. It seemed impossible that people could talk that openly about their broken bits. He remembered how many soldiers lied and ignored their nightmares and shaking hands, desperate to not be sent home with cannon fever. It had seemed weak, then; it had seemed like you had to forfeit your right to be a man, to be taken seriously if you wanted to admit you were wiped out from the violence. He remembered how many people desperately wanted to pretend they were fine. He remembered pretending he was fine. A huge part of him wanted to keep pretending.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. don't you stop

“Trust is contingent on the evidence which one party provides the others of their true, concrete intentions;  
it cannot exist if that party’s words do not coincide with their actions.  
To say one thing and do another—to take one’s own word lightly—cannot inspire trust.  
_To glorify democracy and to silence the people is a farce; to discourse on humanism and to negate people is a lie_.”

\- Freire, the Pedagogy of the Oppressed

^^^

 

'The city centre would probably be best,' Tony said from behind them. Pepper typed accordingly into Bucky's laptop. Bucky sat beside her, rudely peering over her shoulder. 'Close to fun stuff, close to the un-fun courthouse and where Kendall is set up.' Kendall was the tech lawyer with whom Tony had put him in contact; Bucky didn't actually know her first name. He'd met her over Skype, which was one of neatest things he thought the future had. She was a terrifying Puerto Rican with dyed red hair and Bucky had always liked terrifying women. He looked forward to meeting her in person. He regretted needing to meet her; he wanted this whole lawsuit to be fought out as hush-hush as he could keep it. He figured he ought to enjoy her as the silver lining of the whole situation.

'Wow,' Bucky said, as Pepper selected an apartment for him, clicking thru small photos and reading over the incredible amenities. 'Gee, I kind of figured I was living in luxury here at Stark Tower. Is it really normal for an apartment to have its own taps and water closets? Look, this one has its own laundry.'

'Yes,' Pepper agreed. 'I remember how enamoured you were when you first met your refrigerator.'

'It's an icebox that keeps cold all the time,' he said. 'It is really amazing.'

'If you like the icebox so much, you must want to marry my robots,' Tony said. He meant it as a tease but Bucky really did like DUM-E. The little bot had so much personality. It let out sad and happy little whirls and it lowered its grasping claw when Tony dressed it down for misbehaving. Bucky did like them. He'd always liked science fiction; he felt sometimes like he was living in his own little novel here in the future. He couldn't explain that to them. For one, it felt private and precious, and for another, Tony would be a terror armed with that information.

'I don't have the money for any of this,' Bucky said, looking at the amount of rent in DC. Two grand a month seemed insane to him, but he supposed money was different now too. Two grand was probably more like a hundred and fifty dollars in his day, which was still one hell of a lot for a fucking apartment. The new apartment would have a shower and a water closet and a laundry and an icebox. It had way more than the little one-room apartments he and Steve used to share in their twenties, even more than the New Law tenement apartment his not-quite-middle class parents had had. He supposed that comfort was what he was paying for. He didn't really know. He just wanted to stay in the Tower, figure out where he stood. He didn't want fight to stop the fighting. It made no sense to him.

'You have the money,' Pepper promised. He raised an eyebrow, challenging how that could possibly be true. 'Just after the invasion, Tony had some of his lawyers take care of it. Did he not—Tony, did you not talk to him about this? You did this months ago.'

'Was I supposed to?' Tony said from behind them. Pepper glared at him and sighed.

'I'm sorry he's such a child,' Pepper said to Bucky. 'It's not like he could have an adult conversation about what he was doing for you. I should have just kept you in the loop the whole time.'

'What?' Bucky asked. He turned in the computer chair to look at Tony, who was slouching coolly at another workstation in his lab. 'What money?' he asked.

'Yeah, I had one of my lawyers get you paid for all the rights,' he told Bucky. He realised Bucky didn't understand before Bucky could even ask. 'You know, the cartoons, the books, a few TV series, the movies they made in the fifties and sixties.'

'Which are terrible, by the way,' Pepper told him. 'The TV series Showtime started in 2005 was actually quite good; they portrayed Captain James Barnes a lot stiffer than you actually are, but it was good. All told, you have just over six million dollars.' Bucky's heart skidded.

'I'm sorry?' Bucky echoed, sure he had misheard. 'What? Why do I get paid for movies I didn't make? Why do I get that much?'

'You've got just over six million dollars,' Tony repeated. 'That's all for stuff they made before you woke up. You get that much 'cause they made way more than that. There's still an active cartoon series, so you'll see per-episode cheques for that.' Bucky stared at his friends. 'They, you know, tell your story, make up new ones using your name and face. They take the rights to your story, your life. You get paid for that, now that you're not a draftee, and also now that you're not dead.'

'Tony, don't say he was dead,' Pepper chastised. 'God, what a terrible thing.'

'I was dead,' Bucky said, 'for all intents and purposes. I had an empty grave that my sisters visited and the world went on without me. It's fine. I'm not dead now, is all.' Pepper hummed sadly, like she wanted to run her hand comfortingly thru Bucky's hair but knew he hated that.

'All the Army-sponsored ones won't give you a penny,' Tony barrelled on. 'You gave the Army your creative rights indefinitely, which is probably the only time a fucking military optioned a comic book.'

'I have—Whoa,' Bucky said. He nodded to himself. Wow, things seemed a lot less scary when he knew how he could pay for all of it. 'Holy _shit_ , I'm a fucking millionaire. I can't believe you did this for me. I can't believe my story got told that much. I mean, holy shit, six _million_ _dollars_?' Tony laughed at him, but Pepper patted his shoulder.

'It's overwhelming,' Pepper said. 'You know,' she continued, leaning in conspiratorially, 'when Tony does things like this, it's how you know he loves you.' Bucky grinned at her. He had kind of figured. He imagined it had been hard for Tony, coming to meet him that first time. He had grown to understand that the idea of Bucky, or more accurately, of Captain America, had lingered and hovered over Tony's childhood. Howard had never stopped looking for Bucky; he'd believed, like Peggy had for years, that no Cube-powered nuclear explosion meant no dead captain. Bucky imagined it had to be hard to have a father who worked so constantly and then spent months at a time looking for some dead asshole in the Arctic who was always described as so perfect. He imagined it had to be hard to vie for your own father's attention against a dead man.

Bucky had had a hard time meeting Howard's son too. Tony was his own man in a lot of ways, in all the ways that counted, but it still hit Bucky in the gut sometimes to hear a sentence or phrase that sounded so much like his old friend's. Sometimes when Tony stood or looked a certain way, Bucky swore he could see Howard's shadow. He hoped that his continued presence in Tony's life was an easy one for him. He felt it was. At the end of the day, Bucky was sure Howard hadn't passed on the real essence of Bucky; the man Tony had been compared to unfairly all his life had been the good soldier, not the good man Bucky actually tried to be. He hoped that was enough.

'Pepper,' Tony complained. She laughed.

'What?' she said. 'It's true. You never say how you feel, Tony; how is Bucky supposed to know?' Tony rolled his eyes and Bucky needled him.

'Yeah, come on, Tony,' he complained falsely. He pitched his voice to a whine, like a ten year old little boy. 'Tell me you _love_ me. Tell me I'm great. How else am I supposed to know?'

'You know, he's making fun of you,' Tony told Pepper. She looked down at Bucky to check and he shook his head. He hadn't been, not really, making fun of anyone in particular. It was an odd thing in the future; people never just made fun for the sake of it. Maybe they did and humour was just different enough that Bucky missed it.

'Thank you both, seriously,' Bucky said after a long while, closing the laptop. He'd applied for the apartment with Pepper helping him with the online menus and applications he still found a bit of a challenge. She'd been talking about giving him a tablet, which apparently he'd find easier because she had a sense he was a tactile learner. He didn't know if he'd like using the tablet, but he at least knew what the hell it was. Less and less often did he have to point at things and ask what they were. It shouldn't have, but it felt like an accomplishment every time he went a day without asking. 'I really don't know where I would be without you, without either of you.'

'You'd be working for SHIELD,' Tony said easily, tossing a screwdriver across the room and missing the open drawer he'd been aiming for with a clang. As he pointed at it, and DUM-E whirled off to fetch it, Pepper chastised him for behaving like a child. 'If you hadn't bailed on them early,' Tony continued, unconcerned, 'you would have been absolutely stuck cleaning up Fury's messes, getting lied to, getting manipulated. I'm glad I listened to Pepper when she told me to find you. In another world, I might not have been so smart.' Tony had gravitated over to her, and he pushed her hair back to kiss her ear lovingly. She pressed her ear to her neck, pulling away from the tickle.

'Stop it,' she complained, but even Bucky could tell she didn't mean it. 'I'll book you a plane ticket once your apartment comes thru,' she told Bucky, Tony hanging off of her like a loving octopus.

'Absolutely not,' he said firmly. She seemed surprised at his outright refusal, but he meant it. 'I am done with planes,' he explained, bringing his hands to his lap to hide the fact they had immediately started shaking. 'I've survived two plane crashes, and that helicarrier nearly crashed too. I'm not gonna survive the next one. It's statistically impossible. It's tempting fate.'

'You know what? I'm gonna figure out the actual statistical possibility,' Tony said. 'JARVIS?'

'I'm on it, sir,' he chimed.

'Just find the numbers,' Tony requested. 'I wanna do the math. How are you gonna get there?' he asked Bucky. DUM-E came back with the screwdriver and Tony took it, moving away from Pepper and tossing it again as she sighed heavily. 'Need a car?'

'No, I'll take the train like a normal person,' he said. 'People took trains all the time. I'm pretty sure when I was three my ma took me to her sister's for a summer in Indiana by train. I'm sure I remember that. God, it was a long time ago.'

'You're so old,' Tony complained. That was a hilarious insult. Tony, biologically at least, was nearly old enough to be Bucky's father. Bucky chuckled at that.

'What if you need to go to Europe?' Pepper asked. 'Overseas?'

'I will take a boat,' Bucky grumbled. That wasn't practical, especially not if there was an emergency, but he felt it with conviction. He was sure he would compromise in the actual situation, but it made him feel better to rule it out in his head. 'That was good enough in nineteen forty; it's good enough now.'

'Waste of a week,' Tony said. Bucky laughed.

'Ah, come on,' he complained. 'I got nowhere else to be.'

^^^

'What, so you're moving?' Nat asked, lounging on the couch in his sitting room. Bucky was still constantly aware of how incredible it was to live in an apartment with more than two rooms, let alone one with taps and even a shower and water closet. His parents’ apartment had had three rooms, but he’d left it at eighteen to live with and help support Steve; they’d lived in boarding houses and tiny, tiny tenement apartments with shared kitchens and broken taps in the halls. Nat didn't seem to understand the opulence of this place, her boots kicked up onto the smooth wood of the coffee table. She constantly had her boots on his furniture. Cleaning up after her mud and pebbles reminded him of cleaning up after Stevie's charcoal smudges and paint-filled jars; he didn't mind it.

'I guess,' he sighed, passing her a beer bottle. He had one of his own, as annoying and unnecessary as it was. He was constantly, constantly, dangerously sober. He hadn't been drunk since just after he'd been drafted, in the two weeks before he went to Jersey for basic, and not even then off of real booze, just some hooch Jimmy Watson had been making in the walls of his apartment. Steve had thrown up into someone's trash bins that night, when they were stumbling around an abandoned work-yard and pretending they were a normal couple in love, having shenanigans and getting too frisky to be decent. He drank a beer or a whiskey whenever Tony or Nat or Pepper drank around him; it made him seem more human, he supposed, for all it was a wasted effort. 'I have to be in the same city as the SHIELD HQ to deal with their lawsuit, apparently. Kendall says there's no way to get out of that one.'

'Fucking hell,' she murmured, raising the bottle to her lips. Her hair was straight today, and it made her seem younger somehow, more girlish. She was beautiful even when she looked younger, less deadly.

'Yeah,' he sighed, sinking into the couch, a safe distance from her. She sighed, examining at the label of her bottle for a moment. ''S good?' he asked. She hummed her approval of the brewery.

'I'm being relocated to DC too,' she said. 'It's why I came over today, to tell you. Wonder if it's a coincidence.'

'Ah, Fury probably knows we're friends,' Bucky grumbled. 'Wants you around to keep tabs on me.'

'I don't keep tabs on you,' Natasha told him, sounding almost offended. 'Come on.'

'No?' Bucky asked, challenging it. He liked Nat. He did. She was smart and funny and could even be sweet, if he gave her the chance. But she was also thoroughly SHIELD, and Bucky couldn't blame her for that. Coming from where he got the sense she came from, and if one were to stay in the same line of work, SHIELD was as straight as the going got, or at least it seemed that way. Bucky didn’t really trust any of it, but Natasha did.

'I don't know,' she admitted. 'I like you. I don't like trying to spy on people I count as friends. I don't want to try to trick you into working for SHIELD either; you don't want to, and I respect that.' He frowned at her and she explained further. 'You had concerns about SHIELD, and you shared them. I didn't listen, and I won't, but I liked that you worried about me. And about Clint. Agent Barton,' she explained.

'No, I know Clint,' he promised, raising his bottle again. Clint too had thanked him when he had voiced his concerns about SHIELD. Clint had taken Bucky off campus, showed him the pictures he carried of his wife and two kids. He had explained that Fury had set up a way for them to be safe, even after all Clint had done in his past. He explained that because of Fury, even the angriest of people looking for Clint couldn't find his family, and Laura still got to have the little, local dairy farm she'd wanted as a girl. Bucky hadn't pressed him on what he'd done to make such enemies, but he had understood why the opportunity to protect his family had been enough to buy his loyalty for life. He had made Clint promise to be careful, and Clint had laughed at him. His wife, Laura, made him promise the same thing every time he left their house. Bucky felt glad to know Clint had a good reason to be careful. He was glad Clint had three very big reasons; he was glad to know Clint and his wife were trying for a fourth.

'But you haven't brought it up even once since I told you I wouldn't leave,' she continued easily. 'I should return the favour and not make you come back.'

He stared at her for a while, in the comfortable silence, finding this outlook refreshing. It suited her. He had liked Nat from the moment he met her, and her sense of humour, the few moments he'd seen it, endeared her to him further. She seemed to think very little of herself, like the things she'd done in her past kept her value down now, but she also worked as hard as she did at SHIELD because she was trying to make things right. Bucky didn't know what things she had to make up for, nor would he look them up in the collection of SHIELD files he had, but he respected a woman who righted her mistakes, or at least tried.

'That's, uh,' he tried. 'Thanks.'

'Yeah, well,' she said. 'You're one of the good ones, Barnes. They seem to get rarer and rarer.'

'Anybody can be a good one,' he told her. 'It's about the choices you make, not something magic and unchangeable. Not spying on me is a good choice,' he added. Nat gave him a sly smile at that, and he wondered if he would ever learn to read her.

'I have a friend in DC,' Nat said suddenly. 'She works Statistics for SHIELD, no spying, just data entry and analysis. She might be a good choice to ask out.' Bucky coughed out a laugh, pulling from his beer.

'No, no,' he said. 'Thanks for the thought, I guess, but I'm not looking.' Nat eyed him. 'What?' he prompted. She raised her brows and looked away.

'What, do you already have plans in DC?' she asked. 'I doubt you've been there before.'

'I haven't, no,' he hedged. 'New city.'

'New possibilities,' Nat chimed. 'Why not go out with someone? Doesn't have to be Kristen, but somebody. 'S gotta get lonely.'

'Yeah,' he admitted. 'But what am I gonna do? Date a statistician?' he asked. 'What's the point of that?'

'Human companionship,' Nat replied. 'You need a girlfriend, or maybe a boyfriend. Something. No more of those sadness errands you run.'

'Sadness errands?' he echoed. 'The fuck are sadness errands?'

'Your fucking sadness errands,' she told him. 'You go out and wander parks and streets and museums and then eat lunch alone in old fucking diners. You wander around Manhattan helping people fix shit from the Chitauri attack; it's become a meme, spotting you.'

'What the hell is a meme?' he asked.

'It's an Internet joke,' Nat explained. 'People post Instagram pics of you helping out with the hashtag Captain Cleanup.' Bucky rolled his eyes. He didn't know what Instagram was, but he knew the word hashtag. The last thing he needed was another catchy moniker.

'Hey, aliens came out of the sky and I broke a lot of New York trying to stop them,' he pointed out. 'It's not a sadness errand to try to put my city back together, especially now that I'm gonna have to leave it.'

'It's a sadness errand,' Nat said, firm and with a sly smile. 'You need to get laid.' He nearly choked on his beer, covering his mouth with his other hand while he forced himself to swallow.

' _Excuse me_?' he demanded.

'Get laid means—' she began, meeting his eyes.

'I know what getting laid is,' he snapped. 'Just—why? _Jesus_ , Nat. So rude.'

'Indelicate?' she laughed. 'I'm serious. Find somebody.'

'Nat,' he groaned. 'Come on.' She sighed.

'Yeah, yeah,' she said. She put her empty bottle down, and he got up to get her another one. 'Are we watching anything tonight?' she called over the back of the couch as Bucky went to the ridiculously stocked bar in the guest apartment.

'Uh, yeah,' he replied. He left the lid on the granite of the bar. 'Yeah, Tony's coming down at eight thirty to show me how the Netflix works. We'll start the movie after Pepper gets home from work.'

'Wow, party night,' she said dryly, accepting her second beer. 'Is Bruce joining us?'

'I invited him,' Bucky replied. 'Is Clint in town?'

'No,' Nat said simply. Bucky smiled at that as he sat.

It was nice that at least one of them had a real family, a real home. He'd found out Clint had a family after Clint had been released from Loki's mind control. He couldn't quantify his relief that Clint hadn't been taken down before he'd been freed. He couldn't quantify his relief that Clint got to go home to that family.

He couldn't even quantify the small, sharp burst of jealousy that Clint, and not him, got to go home.

^^^

Someone knocked on Bucky's door. He peered thru the open shelving dividing the kitchen from the foyer, wondering who it could be, who could be visiting the home he'd lived in for less than a week. He wiped his hands on terrycloth and left the pots in his sink. He crossed his new apartment silently and peered thru the peephole. Standing on the other side was a burst of red hair. He opened the door with a grin.

'Nat,' he said. 'It's good to see you.' It was, mostly. He was sure she had been reassigned to DC because of her relationship to him, but their relationship was friendly and with Tony and Pepper in New York, he felt pretty fortunate at least someone he knew in this time lived in DC. Peggy was in a Alzheimer’s care centre in Maryland, near to her daughter who lived in the city, but the few times Bucky had been since he moved, she hadn’t been well enough to know him.

'I'm sure you're not serious,' she replied. 'But don't worry. SHIELD did send me, but I'm not going to go thru the whole scheme they want me to.'

'Why not?' he asked. Nat shrugged.

'They did, however, give me a budget for a day on the town with you,' she told him. She waved a tiny plastic thing Bucky knew as a credit card. He had one. He found it more convenient than cash, actually, even tho his father's voice rang in his head, telling him credit and banks weren't to be trusted. 'I just want to give you the opportunity to take the free lunch.' He laughed. She grinned. 'It won't affect your record of being non-compliant, by the way,' Nat added after a moment passed without him accepting. She tucked the card into a pocket inside her jacket. 'SHIELD is supposed to have no direct contact with you during the suit, aside from Legal, so it's strictly off-the-books.' Bucky blinked at her honesty; he felt a bit thrown.

'Thank you,' he said. 'I just finished cooking lunch, tho. My upstairs neighbour gave me a goulash recipe. Missus Ouli is this old Hungarian lady, probably around my age.' He meant his age if you counted from his birth year, not his biological age. Nat understood that easily. 'She's a little batty, but she's real nice. It smells pretty good too. So does the bread I made yesterday. Come on.' He stepped out of the doorframe for her to pass by and she eyed him suspiciously.

'Are you inviting me for a free lunch?' she asked, impressed.

'I guess,' he said. 'You could reimburse me if you really wanted,' he joked. 'I don't take tiny plastic cards, tho.' She came in, slinking past him too close. From the way her eyes stuck on his as she did so, he reckoned it was on purpose. It was a flirtation, and he didn't know what to do with it.

'Let me take your coat,' he offered. It was just lightweight flak, the same green as standard battle fatigues. The look of it sort of freaked him out when she wore it; when he saw it out of the corner of his eye his heart jolted like he was out of uniform, unarmed, and unprepared on the battlefield somehow.

'No, thanks; it's kind of cold in here,' she said. He didn't have the air cooling box in the living room window on, but the stove fan in the kitchen was probably pulling in March-cold air from the open window above the sink. Bucky couldn't believe how many windows his place had. He remembered the boarding room Steve had rented after Bucky had left for war; all it had had for light was the dumbbell window on the back wall, pretty much useless. It was hardly secure, but he had to keep telling himself that it wasn't wartime anymore. The half-dozen big windows thruout the apartment made him pretty pleased most days. He liked standing by them, watching people pass by, as he drank his coffee in the early morning.

'Sorry about that,' he offered, in his tee shirt and jeans. 'I'm pretty impervious to cold, so I guess I didn't notice.' Really, he'd been unnaturally cold since he woke up; he stopped noticing the temperature around him, because no matter what it was or what he tucked himself into, he had a cold, sad chill in his bones. He slid the kitchen window nearly completely shut and stopped the fan in the ceiling before grabbing bowls for them.

'Wow, this is a very empty apartment,' she said, running a finger over the open shelves. He hoped they weren't dusty. His shield sat on the very bottom shelf. There was a gym with an all-cement basement and the owner of course liked having Captain America come by. He'd put some odds and ends down there; at half-strength, Bucky could toss without destroying the place, and spar upstairs with the MMA fighters who trained there. There was a little Korean spitfire with the dirtiest jokes, a young woman called Michelle, maybe twenty one, who Bucky wanted to teach to throw the shield. He'd have to get over his protective feelings about the dumb vibranium frisbee first. He'd learned some new moves from the fighters, and they claimed they had too. It was nice. Bucky went a couple times a week. 'You gotta get something in here. You gotta make it look like a home.' He smiled at that. Her concern was sweet.

'Brooklyn is home,' Bucky told her, even tho he'd been living in Midtown the last six months. Tony and Pepper made it worth being in the city proper. 'DC is only for now. It's too quiet here.'

'It's only quiet compared to New York,' she said. 'You been woken up by sirens here?' He shook his head, going back into the kitchen and fetching two big bowls. 'Matter of time. Your table is gorgeous, at least.' She sat at the oak table after carrying the water glasses for him; he cut two nice slices of crusty brown bread from the first of two loaves he had made yesterday before moving to the table to join her. Bucky was pretty fond of the table, which he had got in a flea market and stripped and restained. It was in fact the nicest thing in his apartment. His ma woulda made him a nice tablecloth for it, but if he'd been home with his ma, Steve would have ruined the thing with charcoal and ink in about a week. The table stayed bare for now, just a couple of books, the salt and pepper, and his closed laptop on the end. 'Thank you,' she said rotely when he placed a bowl, the bread and cutlery in front of her. The butter dish sat in the middle of the table, the white ceramic catching the sunlight.

'You're welcome,' he said, sitting a seat away and at the head. 'Missus Ouli is an angel. Fuck, this is really good,' he added around the goulash in his mouth. She snorted so loudly, and then covered her mouth when he shot her an amazed look.

'It's so funny when Captain America swears,' Nat said. 'Sorry. I'm not teasing,' she promised.

'It's fine,' he laughed. 'Captain America is just a character; it's not really me. Just my call sign.' She nodded as she chewed. 'You know, I watched one of the movies they made about me in the sixties, in sixty-eight, I think.' She nodded. 'It was on the, uh, the TV there, and it was terrible,' he said. The dialogue had been forced. He’d never talked they way they made the man playing him talk. He had had to mute the battle scenes, could barely keep his eyes on the screen. The roar of planes and air raid sirens and the booms of artillery: that they had gotten spot on. He remembered the first action scene, the sudden cut to battle, had nearly forced him right back to those moments when it was do or die, when he did to stop more people from being killed.

'You were such a stuck up asshole in that movie,' she agreed, before he could even say it. 'I think they were going for, like, a serious, dutiful man but something made you seem like a fucking dick. That whole speech you gave about _having orders and following them_ , like you didn't get your start going AWOL. It was nice meeting the real you.' He looked down at his food, pleased somehow that she thought so.

'I'm glad you don't think I'm that much of a dick in real life, Nat,' he told her.

'Can I ask you something?' she said. He shrugged. 'It's personal; I just—Well, you seem so level-headed.' He took a big gulp of water and waited. 'When Loki mentioned that person—' He nearly dropped his spoon; it clattered against his bowl. Nat eyed his hands, no doubt storing away their shake. '—you just broke. You'd been awake for only a week or so, and that was the only time I ever saw you shaken.'

'Yeah,' he said vaguely. He put down his spoon and leaned back. The hot spice of the goulash had seemed to turn to ash in his mouth. He looked away from her, staring absently at the shield on the bottom of his shelves. The MMA fighter he wanted to teach to throw reminded him a little of Steve: by all rights, too tiny to hit like they did. Steve had been full of ideas of how to better utilize the weapon. He'd been the one to show Bucky how to catch it on the rebound, tried to explain how to just know where the shield would bounce back to, where the straps would line up. Tony was going to make him a magnetic recall relay, which would be neat as all hell once it was finished. In the meantime, every time Bucky threw it was like a reminder.

'Sorry,' she said. 'I just worried about it. About you.'

'It's fine,' he lied. 'How—I mean, what have you put together?' She shrugged.

'Not much,' she admitted. 'Loki mentioned a feisty little blonde. He said you were in love. He made it sound like you got her killed.' Bucky bet the incorrect pronoun was intentional; people hated opening up, but they generally loved correcting others. He sighed heavily, trying to expel the sudden cold in his lungs, like thin mountain air.

'I did get him killed,' Bucky promised, hoping his voice didn't crack. 'His name was Steve, Steve Rogers.' Something about Nat's frank denial of SHIELD's request to recruit him, maybe even Fury's request, made him think she was genuinely asking for him. If this visit was off the books, and if she weren't following the orders she'd gotten anyway, she must really here as a friend. He felt sure of it, because they were friends, and her gaze was so sincere. 'We grew up together. He was, uh.' Bucky broke off, trying to even think of a way to describe him. 'He had the biggest heart and spirit you could ever hope to find, but he wasn't healthy. A lot of what was wrong with him woulda been fixable, now, but then—We always thought the winter would kill him, just take him in a bout of fever. He wouldn't let it, tho. Too stubborn to die sick, I guess. He was a lot of things, but weak or delicate was never, ever, never one of them.

'When I got drafted,' Bucky began, thinking of it, 'I was real upset. I thought I'd leave, and he'd be alone, and what if I never saw my sisters again, you know? He told me that it was my duty to serve. I got my card before America even joined the war, and I didn’t know what the point of it all was other than to tear me away from my family, and he told me that the Nazis had bullied their own people and now they were gonna bully the world.’ Steve had said it was only a matter of time before America stepped up, because they were supposed to be the land of the free and the Nazis were gonna try to take everyone’s freedom, not just that of the people like Steve. He had said that it was the right thing to do, and he'd refused to let on to Bucky how sore he was that Bucky would go and he would get turned away.

‘If I could play even a part in protecting people, I had to,’ Bucky said. ‘He made it seem like less of a sacrifice. I don't know how he got in—he was sick and small and had a crooked spine and his ears don't work so well—didn't—but he got himself signed up. His dumb ass even put his religion on his dog tags, as if the Nazis didn't have enough reason to kill him. He became a medic, served while I was in Project: Rebirth, and while I was intelligence in the SSR.'

'A medic?' she said, sounding surprised. It was trivia now, something few people ever remembered, but he nodded.

'Yeah, at first,' he agreed. He swallowed hard, his throat rough as the sea at Wimereux. 'HYDRA captured the entirety of the one-oh-seventh. His medical corps was attached to them, and the rest of the medics were killed in the ambush. HYDRA, or I guess Arnim Zola, singled him out. Tried to recreate my serum on him. He couldn't fix everything that was wrong with Steve, and then after the rescue, Steve fought with the Commandos. He fought hard.'

'Was that when you went AWOL?' she asked, jumping back thru the timeline of his story. 'Was it just 'cause of him?' She let her spoon clink loudly against her bowl, clearly trying to make him eat. He smiled dimly at the subtle concern. He picked up his spoon and poked his food, but his stomach felt wormy as he tried to think about Steve without feeling like an open complex fracture was scraping against rusted metal.

'I might have gone when I heard that many men were captured and that no one else was gonna go after 'em,' he said. 'It's hard to know. But I knew he was there, dead or alive, and I knew he thought I'd come for him. He had to think that, in some part of his mind. I was always pulling him out of trouble.'

'And then he died,' she put in. His eyes stung and Bucky huffed a shaking breath. 'Are you OK?' He rubbed a calloused hand over his mouth, nodding.

'I got him killed,' he repeated. 'You know, it was a risky op, but I thought it was worth the risk. Planning it, you know, Phillips, Peggy, everyone: they kept telling me if anyone fell off the train, that was it. _Abyssinia_. They kept saying, you know, _even you, even with the serum, you'd be killed by the fall_. It was dangerous, and I insisted we do it. They all thought it was a bad idea. I just knew it was our only chance to get Zola.'

'Did he fall off the top?' Nat said. 'I think you zip lined onto the train. I remember a cartoon Clint showed me, where you did that.' Bucky shook his head.

'No, three of us got inside just fine. I didn't disarm a weapon I should have,' he said. His voice sounded like sandpaper. 'I thought I'd taken out the gunman, and Stevie was in a tight spot, so I didn't follow the protocol. Then I got myself into a spot where I was gonna get killed. He drew the fire away. He got blasted out the side of the train.'

'Jesus,' she cursed.

'He actually caught a railing on the side,' Bucky admitted. He could see the whole scene in vivid colour in his mind's eye, could feel the wind and the speed and the horror of that moment. 'I didn't catch him when it gave out. Wasn't quick enough.'

'I'm so sorry,' she said. He nodded. 'It must still feel fresh, huh. The loss.'

'He shouldn't have even _been_ there,' he said wetly. He wiped under his eyes, even tho he was definitely not crying. Nat didn't say a thing about it. 'I shoulda sent him home when I had the chance. I coulda sent him home.'

'Why, so he could have been the one to live without you?' Nat asked. He looked at her suddenly. He had never thought about it that way, never even considered how hard Steve might have had it if he'd been the one to survive. God, Bucky would have probably still ended up in the Valkyrie, in a half-destroyed, armed aircraft headed for his hometown, headed for Steve. He would have still crashed it. Steve would have been the one alone, the one left behind. 'It sounds like six-of-one, half-a-dozen of the other.'

'You ever been in love?' he asked.

'No,' she admitted, sounding disarmed by his question. He supposed she was used to being the one in control of where the conversation was going; he imagined she spent little time in the hot seat herself. 'No, I haven't.'

'Look forward to it,' he told her. She frowned and he nodded, continuing. 'Seriously. I know I make it look like it just hurts, but every second I had with Steve was worth this; a hundred times over, it woulda been worth it.' She stared at him for that and he smiled sadly. 'He would've liked you, I think,' he added. 'He had a great sense of character, better than mine.'

He forced himself to eat more. She let him in silence.

'I shouldn't have pried,' she offered, after a long while. 'I was just worried about my friend. I'm still worried, frankly.'

'It's OK, Nat,' he said. 'I'm fine.' He only sort of meant it.

^^^

'Good work, Romanov,' Rumlow said as she climbed back into the van parked at the back of the building across the street from Barnes's apartment. 'It wasn't a lot, but it was useful.' Natasha sighed, pulling the tiny mic she'd been wearing out from under her jacket collar. She passed it over to him without turning it off like she was meant to.

'I'm not doing this again,' she said. Rumlow eyed her as Rollins started driving away. He flicked the mic off with a sigh and began packing the tiny thing away with the rest of the sound equipment. She didn't help, sitting on the bench by the dark video monitors and staring out the one-way windows at the back.

'The orders come from the very top,' Rumlow pointed out. 'You'll be here next week.'

'I won't,' she said. 'You can find someone else if it's so fucking important.'

'Aw, did his fuckin' sob story make you feel bad for him?' Rumlow snapped. 'Is Black Widow all butt-hurt for Captain America?'

'You've heard me try to talk about the suit; you've heard him deflect questions about it, every single time I've been bugged with him,' she snapped right back. 'This intel has nothing to do with the mission we've been given; it has to do with things that are his fucking business.'

'Maybe your mission,' Rumlow said. 'We've got different orders. And since when did you start giving a shit about privacy?'

'Since he made it clear he respected mine,' she replied. 'He's a good man. He doesn't deserve to be spied on.'

'Good man,' Rollins snorted from the driver's seat. He was an efficient agent but otherwise a piece of shit so Nat ignored him. She didn't even give him a glare.

'The world isn't a meritocracy,' Rumlow sneered. 'People don't get what they deserve. We'll see you for this on Tuesday, thirteen hundred hours, or you'll get reported up top. You find out where he'll be then; we'll find a place to park.'

Nat didn't argue it. She was simply sure that her mic and coms would malfunction inconveniently. He had really loved Steve, Nat could tell. She thought love was an unnecessary risk and burden to carry, and looking at the pieces of Bucky, she was more sure than ever that she was right. What had been the point of that love? He would have to work so hard, so long, to even begin to fix himself, if broken hearts that size were even fixable. She worked less hard to make sure no one had the ability to break her like that. It was safer that way.

She wondered what orders Rumlow and Rollins had gotten from Fury, why they differed from hers. She considered asking, but it wasn't like she had never been sent on an op with different orders than the rest. Things happened on a need-to-know basis. No one could spill all the beans because no one knew everything. It was safer this way too.

Sometimes Nat wished she could compromise survival. She might feel more secure while she lived, at least.

^^^

'I'm sorry, sir, but you seem to be unable to book a ticket,' the ticket agent said. Bucky stared at the young Latina clerk. She looked genuinely sorry, probably not because she felt sorry for each passenger she was unable to book but because he was Captain America. He had anticipated that might move him thru this part of the process quicker, not get him an apologetic look.

'Why not?' Bucky asked, taking the passport she offered back to him. 'Is it 'cause the birth year is from about ninety years ago when I look less than thirty? I can explain that part,' he promised, hoping the problem was somehow that simple. She smiled nervously at that.

'No, it says here that your passport and travel rights are frozen pending investigation,' she told him. 'Is there a criminal case open against you?' He buried his face into his hands, hunching over the ticket counter.

'No, a proprietary technology case,' he replied. 'Civil charges, not criminal. Seriously?’ he demanded, lifting his head. ‘Do you know what's happening on the other side of the country right now?' She nodded.

'I know,' she agreed. 'I wish I could get you there first class on our fastest flight, but—' She looked back down at her screen, shaking her head.

'Is there a manager?' he asked, cutting her off rudely. He regretted it immediately, but the terror running thru him prevented him from apologizing. 'Just, I figure you don't actually know that much about why I can't leave DC. Will the manager know or should I call my lawyer?'

'I'll get her,' the ticket agent promised, and she left the counter. He glanced behind himself as she did, unable to help it. He had to face the desk to speak to her, but it meant turning his back on the line of people waiting for ticketing, and the large, glass windows, the many, many doors, and the only area of the airport one could reach without being vetted by security. As anxious as he felt about Tony’s situation, all of that was ramped up and worsened by the horrible tactical position of the ticketing desk. Bucky resented himself for it, but he couldn’t help it. He hated having his back to the windows, especially when he should be already heading to a battle, not stuck in line at a fucking airport as a ticketing agent fetched a manager. A few people in line behind Bucky grumbled at as the ticketer moved to the back room to call for a manager, but he ignored the sounds of displeasure. The manager was a coloured woman about Tony's age, and she waved Bucky away from the open ticket desk to a closed one.

'Hi,' Bucky said, hauling his bug-out with his shield and uniform inside. The bag had had his uniform and some other basic supplies packed since the first day he moved his things into his DC apartment; after receiving Tony’s SOS signal, he’d yanked it from his closet and grabbed his shield on the way out the door. He wore his more practical, black combat boots already, and his undersuit was comforting under his clothes. 'I'm—'

'Captain America,' she said. He was going to say his actual fucking name, but most people still called him by his comic book title. He smiled tightly. 'I know.'

'You must be Mary,' he said, having read her name tag at a distance to avoid looking like he was staring untowardly at her admittedly ample chest. He shook her hand over the desk. She gave him a warm, touched smile.

'Yes,' she agreed. 'Look, Captain, in all honesty, the fact you're here trying to book a ticket is probably a violation of whatever legal freeze is on your passport.' He tapped the binding of his passport against the counter, unable to stop fidgeting. Tony was in trouble and Bucky was on a freeze.

'What does that mean?' he asked.

'You're likely in violation of the same restriction that moved you here from New York City,' she said. 'You trying to leave the state, or, I suppose, the District: it's enough to get you arrested.'

'Really?' he demanded. 'God, I go to Maryland every other day to visit—You're telling me I can get _arrested_ for trying to go help Iron Man with the Mandarin?' Mary nodded.

'I know it's possible for you to get arrested,' she said. 'I don't know the nature of your charges; either way, this can mean big trouble for you. You already were flagged by our system. Frankly, even if you turned around and got well within city limits, the fact you attempted to leave might be enough to warrant whatever legal recourse a travel violation might open you up to.'

'Damn it,' he cursed. 'God damn it.' He wanted to punch something. The bones of his wrist felt tight and furious; the stress of his fucking uselessness lately would kill him, he swore.

'I'm so sorry,' she said. 'I wish there were something we could do.'

'Not unless you have a fake passport lying around I can have,' he joked. Mary smiled falsely, uncomfortable and clearly concerned as he was about the terrorist on the loose. 'OK. I'll—I'll see what I can do. Thank you, for explaining,' he said. She nodded and he wandered away from the counter. He stood outside, tucking his passport into his jacket and pulling out his phone.

'Kendall, please,' he said when the secretary at the law firm answered with a chirp. 'It's urgent, Cathy. Thank you.'

'Captain Barnes?' Kendall greeted after a moment. 'What's so urgent? I was in a meeting.'

'There's a terrorist trying to kill Tony and probably a whack of other people,' Bucky told her. 'I apparently can't leave DC.'

'You didn't try, did you?' Kendall demanded. 'Barnes, tell me you didn't try.'

'I'm at the airport!' he snapped, running a hand thru his hair. Some airport staff directing taxis looked over; he was shouting and had to really get a hold on himself. He forced himself to breathe; the DC air felt like ice and car exhaust. 'I got an SOS signal from Tony; of course, _I fucking tried_.'

'I wish you hadn't done that,' she lamented. 'It's my fault; I should have been much, much clearer about the nature of being a witness property to you. Until the courts decide your serum isn't owned in any way by SHIELD or its remnants of the SSR, you have to stay within the reach of those who might have a claim to that technology.'

'This is such _bullshit_ , Kendall,' he began, his voice creeping towards hysterical. 'People are going to fucking die and it's because SHIELD thinks they're allowed to own me?'

'Well, they're trying to argue they own technology embedded into your genetic code; it's not the same thing,' she hedged. 'Barnes, god. I'm sorry this is happening. The best thing for you to do is to go home, keep off the streets, and hope I can settle this before SHIELD comes to arrest you.'

'Too late,' he told her, spotting an armoured, black SUV round the departures parkway. 'I can see SHIELD vehicles.'

'Don't run; don't move,' she ordered.

'I'm not an idiot,' he replied. Kendall scoffed.

'You just violated your property release terms, so, yes, you are,' she sighed.

'I am not a piece of property, Kendall!' he practically growled. 'I shouldn't have—have export restrictions!'

'OK, well, you do,' she said uselessly, not bothering to placate him. 'Let the SHIELD team take you into custody. Don't let them take any samples, not a hair. Don't answer any questions. Don't egg anyone on. Just sit where they tell you and shut up. Have them tell you what precinct they're taking you to; I'll meet you there.'

'I'm sorry about this,' he said. 'I didn't know. I wanted to help my friend. Tony's in trouble, and if I'm not coming, I don't know who is gonna help him. I don’t know what’s gonna happen.'

'You can't help him from jail, so don't make this worse,' Kendall said. 'I'll meet you.' He hung up the phone and waved at the tinted windows as the SHIELD vehicle pulled up to the curb. He hid a cringe when Rumlow and his STRIKE partner stepped out. He didn't like that these were the two who were sent to take him in. He wondered if SHIELD anticipated they would have to take him down. Two other SHIELD vehicles rounded the parkway entry in Bucky's line of sight. The whole STRIKE team was probably in those vehicles. They were going to try to take him down if he didn't cooperate.

'Hi, Rumlow. Rollins,' he greeted. 'Am I under arrest for trying to stop an act of terrorism?' he asked darkly, even if Kendall had told him to keep his fool mouth shut. 'SHIELD playing for the Mandarin's team?' Rumlow approached him with his hand on his holster. Bucky resented that show of subtle, threatening violence. It was the same attitude that had had him on edge from the first time he met Rumlow; the man constantly oozed cruelty and a quick trigger.

'Well, it's called protective property seizure,' Rumlow corrected, 'not arrest.' He had basic cuffs in his hand. 'Do I need these?' Rumlow asked, hefting the thin, useless metal. Bucky could snap out of those cuffs like that the same way Rumlow could cut dental floss with its own packaging. He lifted his carry-on from its spot at his feet and made his way across the sidewalk to the SUV.

'I'm a person, not property,' Bucky grumbled, hating the way his hands felt tied even as he stepped towards the door Rollins opened of his own volition. Rumlow touched the back of Bucky's head by habit, guiding him thru the doorframe. It sure felt like he was under arrest. The airport faded behind them and one of the two SUVs behind them pulled ahead of them to form a protective detail. 'What precinct are you taking me to?' he called up from the back seat he'd been buckled into like a child.

'Not police,' Rumlow said. 'Not their jurisdiction.'

'We're going to the Triskelion, SHIELD HQ,' Rollins called back. 'You tellin' your lawyer to meet us there to be a bitch or are you gonna suit up and let SHIELD fly its new captain to help out?'

'I'm getting my lawyer,' Bucky said, his heart clenching at the thinly veiled ransom terms. ‘Don't refer to Kendall like that. It's a horrible thing to say about a woman.'

'Bitch,' Rollins repeated, and Bucky bit his tongue. He felt himself draw blood with a tiny burst of copper in his mouth as he sent Kendall his destination.

Seventy years he was asleep, and here he was, under arrest in the back of an SUV. Men like Rumlow and Rollins still thought a big gun made them big men, and they still said hateful, awful things about women like it was nothing at all. He'd first woken up and been told that he was living in post-sexism, post-racial America, but nothing he had seen so far had made that feel true. Women sped up when he walked too close behind them on the streets at night and made him regret seeming so big and scary; he'd seen police stop-and-frisk a dozen times as many brown people as white people in his few months in New York. Lotta things were better, but a lot of things seemed a lot more insidious too.

He was being sued for his own DNA, for God's sake. SHIELD was one of the World Security Council's biggest purveyors of peace, if the mainstream media about them was to be believed, yet they were battling Bucky in court for his right to himself, to be able to go home now that his war was over and his draft card was decades expired. Like Kendall said, they might legally be trying to claim the enhanced, inhuman nucleotides in his DNA, but that wasn't a removable aspect of his person. If SHIELD really owned that, they owned him. It wasn't right. It shouldn't be right.

Hell, they were so unlike merchants of peace that they were holding him basically hostage while Tony fought with the most terrifying nutjob Bucky had heard of since the Red Skull. If he signed a contract or even verbally agreed to put on a suit with a SHIELD logo stitched into Kevlar, they would probably fly him right out to wherever Tony needed him.

The thing was, they would expect him to fly to a lot more places for dirty work and tricky things that they needed. Bucky didn’t want to do dirty work anymore. His war was supposed to be over, and liberty was supposed to have won. There wasn't a solution here. Even if there were, wasn't the principle important enough to hold out? Wasn't it worth not being owned, even if it meant Tony had to fight a battle on his own?

Bucky felt sick, suddenly. If Tony died, it would be because Bucky didn't step up. It would be his own fear and hesitation to trust SHIELD that got Tony killed. If Tony couldn't stop the Mandarin by himself, then the price of the Mandarin's destruction fell on him. He should be there. He should be fighting. He should be stopping the destruction, not sitting in the back of a comfortable, armoured truck on his way to a holding cell.

^^^

'There's no way to convince you to lift the travel restriction temporarily to allow Captain Barnes to assist his teammates?' Kendall asked again. Bucky sat beside her, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared at the ground. The SHIELD lawyers, two wormy fucking white men Bucky hated on sight, shrugged again. 'Is there nothing you can do for us? Given the circumstances in California, this is a reasonable request.'

'If Captain Barnes wants to sign on even as an independent operative,' Franklin began, 'then SHIELD would fly him at our expense to assist. I remind the counsellor that the Avengers Initiative is also a property of SHIELD, not a team the Captain runs.'

'The Avengers as assembled in New York disagree,' Kendall said firmly. 'You know as well as I do your independent operatives have as much say as your contracted employees; it's a difference in title, not freedom. Besides, the Avengers are willing to go by a new name if you'd like to press a trademark, but each member of the team has made it clear they will assemble with or without SHIELD authorization if and when the call comes down.'

'You realise that makes them an unauthorised vigilante group?' Franklin replied. His legal partner sat calmly beside him, taking notes in a modern shorthand Bucky couldn't read, let alone upside down.

'That's not what we're here to negotiate,' Kendall repeated. 'We're here to discuss Captain Barnes's travel restrictions.'

'And as we've said in the past, should Captain Barnes wish to place our technology at risk, he should provide us with proprietary samples and do so on our terms,' Franklin repeated right back.

'So you can recreate my serum as a weapon?' Bucky snapped. 'When I signed onto Project: Rebirth, the terms of my restricted contract were due to expire when my draft card did,' Bucky put in. Kendall hated when he interrupted, probably because he always had such a hot head in these meetings, but he couldn't help it. 'The technology rights of the SSR ended with Doctor Erskine's notes and Howard's technology. I was never meant to be owned like this.'

'Captain, please,' Kendall sighed, trying to shut him up.

'We're not trying to claim we own you, Captain Barnes,' Franklin assured him, like a lying fucking snake. 'We're trying to ensure our technology isn't lost again like it was lost when you were trapped in the Arctic. With the final sample of the serum lost—'

'Senator Brandt brought the man who lost it for you with his security detail,' Bucky said, jabbing his index finger down onto the table. This was a waste of time, and Tony could be in serious trouble right now. He had sent Bucky an SOS text almost fifteen hours ago; this delay was unacceptable and if Tony died because of it, it would be on Bucky. Those thoughts fuelled the fire raging in his chest, turned his anger white-hot. 'If you want to punish someone for that, go after the State of New Jersey; don't come after me,' he snapped.

'Captain—' Kendall said again, and Bucky leaned back, shaking his head.

'This is fucking bullshit,' Bucky muttered. 'I hope you all know that this is fucking bullshit.' Kendall sighed again.

'Barnes, go wait in the hall,' she snapped. He stood angrily, his fingers shaking with rage, and he slammed the door of the conference room as hard as he could without coming close to compromising its glass or its hinges.

'Fucking bullshit,' he repeated to himself as he went, like a misbehaving child sent away without supper, to the waiting room ten feet down the hall. He watched the waiting room TV, playing CNN with closed captioning. The reporter was talking about the Mandarin, about the rising attack and then something horrible happened.

The channel cut back to the main station and main anchors, and moments later the CC caught up with the anchors' voices and lips.

_IN THE WAKE OF THE MANDARIN'S ATTACK ON TONY STARK'S PRIVATE RESIDENCE, AUTHORITIES ARE NOW COUNTING IRON MAN HIMSELF AS ONE OF THE CASUALTIES OF THE MANDARIN. WHILE THEY ADMIT THEY ARE STILL SEARCHING THE WRECKAGE FOR THE BODY OF MR STARK AND ANY OF HIS STAFF WHO MAY HAVE BEEN IN THE HOME, THEY NOTIFIED NEXT-OF-KIN AND THE MEDIA THIS MORNING OF TONY STARK'S DEATH. SOURCES SPECULATE—_

'Oh, my God,' he whispered, sinking into one of the hard, unpadded chairs of the waiting room. His eyes flooded and went blurry and he looked away from the screen. He braced his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. Tony was dead. The Mandarin had killed him. Bucky was nowhere close to getting out of here; Kendall had promised him he was lucky he hadn't actually been dragged down to a holding cell.

'Captain,' Kendall said from beside him. Bucky didn't know how long he'd been sitting there. He felt like his world had stopped spinning when he'd heard of Tony's death; he felt like he had failed and if he held one more failure like this, it would be the last one he could take. 'SHIELD has agreed to let you go home. I'm going to keep pushing to lift your travel restrictions—'

'Tony's dead,' he said. 'CNN just heard in a statement from the emergency crews at his house in Malibu. It's been destroyed and Tony's fucking dead.' He heard Kendall sink into the chair next to him.

'Jesus, Captain, I am so sorry,' she said. 'Are they sure?'

'I don't know,' he admitted. He lifted his head and stared at the television. CNN was panning over the wreckage of Tony's home in one of their helicopters, smoke and small fires still raging thruout the ruin. 'Seems like they wouldn't announce it if they weren't.'

'I'll keep pushing for your rights to be reinstated,' Kendall offered after a tense, horrible silence. He nodded.

'Yeah,' he replied. 'It'd be good to finish this, since Tony can't.' He stood, making to leave the SHIELD HQ. Franklin and his law partner were still sitting in the conference room, placid and unconcerned with the death Bucky might have been able to prevent, unconcerned with all the death still yet to come from the Mandarin.

'Captain, you need to go back to your apartment and stay there,' Kendall told him as he hit the elevator button. 'SHIELD would have every right to hold you after you tried to leave the state—'

'No, Kendall, they wouldn't,' he snapped. His heart hurt and his anger hadn't started smoking out yet, unlike the wreckage of Tony’s home. He tried very, very hard not to yell at her. Kendall was a strong woman and she would yell right back, uncowed by his bulk and his height as they overshadowed hers. He couldn't risk scaring her like that; he couldn't make a scene in SHIELD's view even if he wanted to. 'They don't have any right to stop me from doing my duty. I promised Tony. I promised Pepper.'

'A terrorist killed him, not you,' Kendall put in. Bucky laughed darkly, stepping into the small elevator. Kendall followed him, her heavy briefcase strap digging into the smart line of her blazer. 'You are not responsible—'

'I'm Captain America,' Bucky said. It came out more delicately than he intended. Kendall stared. He watched the numbers above the door drift down from thirty. 'I'm supposed to defend people. I'm supposed to protect the members of my team. I'm supposed to—' His voice cracked. Kendall looked away. He tucked his hands into his pockets. They were shaking again and the smoke of his temper dying stung at his eyes uncomfortably. God, he wanted to go home.

'I'm supposed to be better than this.'

^^^

Bucky paced in his apartment with his cell phone clutched in his hand. Tony had made him a reinforced steel case for his StarkPhone after he had witnessed Bucky crush one in his hand by accident. The strong case strained under his white-knuckled grip, but it held stable enough for his call to trill in his ear.

'Yo, Ice Cap,' Tony called, appearing on Bucky's open laptop. 'Over here.' Bucky nearly dropped his cell phone, rushing to his kitchen table and sitting in a hurry. The chair legs skidded on his laminate.

'Holy shit, Tony,' Bucky said. 'Is Pepper there?' She appeared behind him, freshly showered and wearing Tony's favourite bathrobe. 'Holy shit, Pepper.'

'I'm OK,' she promised him, slinging her arm over Tony's shoulder as she settled on their bed, speaking to the television against the wall, no doubt. Her hand nestled over his heart, and Bucky realised she wasn't blocking out the glow of a tiny reactor in Tony's chest. 'We're both OK.'

'Jesus, I thought Tony was dead,' Bucky admitted. 'They said you were dead and I wasn't—God, I'm so sorry—I tried to come.' He sounded distraught, God. He had to pull it together. Tony and Pepper were the ones who had been thru hell and back; he'd sat on the sidelines and refused to take the shortcut to them because it would mean giving up a medium of independence. He couldn't imagine it felt justified to them, not when Tony had tried to call out for help before things truly went FUBAR.

'We know,' Pepper promised despite his worry she would dismiss his apology; it was useless and he should have fucking been there. 'When we got back home and it was all over, JARVIS told us you'd been arrested at the DC airport, trying to come out to help.'

'Trying to get on a plane, huh, my brave boy?' Tony teased. He looked like shit; he was bruised and gashed and exhausted. Pepper looked fresh-faced and tired, but she looked better than he did. Bucky imagined that was a side effect of the drug AIM had given her. He hoped that was the only side effect. 'Didn’t head to the rail yard to try to pay a conductor a dime for a ride?'

'Fuck off,' Bucky snapped. 'I thought you were fucking dead, pal.'

'Yeah, well, I'm not,' Tony promised, looking away as he lounged on his comfortable California King mattress. 'I think we'll come see you, once all this finishes blowing over.'

'I don't have a guest apartment for you,' Bucky told him. Pepper laughed, like she thought Bucky was genuinely funny. He grinned tiredly, pleased she was doing well enough to laugh.

'We own a place out there,' she promised. 'With our Malibu house destroyed—'

'—I'm really genuinely sorry about that—' Tony put in.

'I think it might be our new vacation spot,' she finished, ignoring Tony completely. 'Besides, we want to see you.'

'I tried to come,' Bucky said again, unable to stop apologising for failing them again. He had promised Pepper, after the Battle of New York, that he wouldn't fail again, and yet, here they were. 'If I'd been there, things mighta stopped sooner. Pepper, God, you might have been safer.'

'This isn't on you, Cap,' Tony said, his voice soft and serious in a way it rarely was. Moments like this were when he sounded most like his father. The ghost of Howard lingered in Bucky's mind’s eye, a reminder that Howard had never stopped trying to find Bucky. Bucky had been stopped from helping his friend's son so easily. 'Come on. Pull it together.'

'Yeah,' Bucky agreed. Pepper sighed over the line, turning from the camera slightly to press her lips to Tony's hair.

'It's really not on you,' Tony repeated. He leaned into Pepper and Bucky help but wish he had someone to lean into too. 'Bucky, man, really. I made it out. Pepper's gonna be completely cured after two more stabilizing treatments. Right now she's in no danger of exploding and is acting a lot like you, accidentally breaking shit because her hands are so strong. It’s weirdly attractive.’ He waggled his brows at Bucky and it made him crack a tired grin.

'It's incredibly annoying,' Pepper corrected. 'I don't know how you deal with this amount of strength all the time.'

'Seriously,' Tony said. 'We're both OK.'

'I could have—' Bucky tried, and Tony waved him off.

'Hey, coulda, shoulda, woulda,' he chirped. 'It's all right. We won. There is nothing here to torture yourself with.'

'Since when did you become the expert at knowing what to let haunt you?' Bucky asked, a little sharper than he meant to.

'Since I had the heart surgery I should have had as soon as I got back from Afghanistan,' Tony bragged, his seriousness and the shadow of Howard falling away as Tony admitted his mistakes. Howard had never had the ability to do that, not while Bucky knew him. Seeing Tony realise even this small thing made Bucky more aware than ever that pride was perhaps more dangerous than anything else. 'No more shrapnel in my chest. No more arc reactor holding them out of my ventricles.' Pepper’s hand on his chest turned possessive and protective, going tense over Tony’s sternum. 'Got some new scars, and got some new healing to do, but it's over.'

'Time to move on,' Bucky guessed. Pepper leaned her cheek on Tony's hair, watching Bucky's face on her screen.

'Exactly, Capsicle,' Tony agreed. 'Time to move on.'

^^^

Bucky lingered in the back doorway of the group meeting. The VA office was one he'd never been to, not that he'd ever gone to the one Pepper had recommended in New York. He'd been too shaken to admit he was shook. Then the Chitauri had attacked and he found himself even more shaken, which he hadn't thought was possible. He hadn't been brave enough then to go. Loki had made him break with a few well placed words about loss; he was practically a liability the way he was going now. When he had gotten Tony’s distress signal, when he had thought he had really, truly failed, that had shaken him even more. Even after Tony came back from the dead, Bucky had been up at night with guilt, almost grieving, and the stress of not sleeping was catching up. He couldn’t finish his fight with SHIELD if falling asleep was a chore and getting out of bed in the morning was a challenge. Something had made him realise he couldn't go thru life the way he had tried to for months in New York. He had to get better and that meant admitting something was wrong.

He didn’t know if the VA was the answer, but he also didn’t know what else his options might be.

He didn't think he could become a soldier again, and certainly not for an organization like SHIELD. He didn't want to go back to that, not unless he could do it without compromising. It seemed unlikely he would find a way to do it without being compromised.

'The thing is I think it's getting worse,' a young woman said. 'A cop pulled me over last week. He thought I was drunk. I swerved to miss a plastic bag. I thought it was an IED.'

Most of the veterans in the meeting seemed so young. There had been a war in Iraq and in Afghanistan while he was gone—two wars, actually, and one in Korea and another in Vietnam—and the people who had come back from those sandy places seemed to carry the scars of it like beach towels would haul that same sand, tracking it thru ordinary life.

'Some stuff you leave there; other stuff you bring back,' the group leader said sagely. He was a coloured fella, and Bucky trusted him on sight. What an important trait for a group leader, he figured. He wondered if the man had been taught the skill, or if he'd been chosen because he was innately trustworthy. The way he spoke was calm, compassionate, and absolutely free of judgement. 'It's our job to figure out how to carry it. Is it gonna be in a big suitcase or in a little man-purse? It's up to you.' He continued, and the vets listened and shared. Some of their sharing was almost too much for Bucky, but the group leader cut in when the air started to spark, and he muted the electricity of trauma so well. It felt safe. Bucky lingered in the back until the group leader let everyone know it was time to disperse.

Bucky lingered in the back until almost everyone was gone. The guy said his farewells to the young woman, and then turned to look directly at Bucky, like he'd known he was there all along. Bucky stepped out of the doorframe then.

'Hi there,' the man said, sticking out a hand. Bucky shook it. 'I'm Sam Wilson.'

'Bucky Barnes,' Bucky replied. Sam smiled kindly.

'Yeah, I kinda put that together,' he said easily. 'You know, next time you come I'm gonna make you sit with everyone else.' Bucky laughed softly at the tease.

'I didn't want to disrupt anything,' he said. 'I was late, firstly. You know, coming back, people recognise me on the streets and in the shops. I wanted to make sure it was OK I came at all. They probably need this more than I do. I just—I wanted to make sure.'

'Of course,' Sam said sincerely, frowning at the idea. 'Dude, this is Veterans' Affairs. Did you serve?' he asked rhetorically, continuing immediately. 'Then you have a spot in my group.'

'Thanks, Sam,' Bucky said. 'Can I ask you something unrelated?' Sam nodded. 'A lot of words are different now. People don't call you a Negro anymore, but I don't—No one's explained.' Sam chuckled. The room was empty now and he gestured to two chairs in the loose circle. Bucky nodded his thanks and sat down. Sam tossed one of his feet up onto the strut of the next chair over.

'Black, African-American, person of colour,' Sam said, flicking out fingers to number them off. 'Any of those is fine, really. Last one is very politically correct, but the first one is the basic polite. No one in the right mind would think you're a racist, tho, even if you still have the wrong terms in your head.'

'How's that?' Bucky wondered. Sam shrugged, like the answer was obvious.

'You ran a desegregated unit before that sort of thing was OK,' Sam pointed out. 'I bet that was a fight.' It had been. He'd actually threatened to publicly desert several times when shouting about Gabe Jones or Jim Morita with certain generals, even Steve on occasion. Bucky had refused many medals and awards over his service, because they weren't offered to every member of his team. Certain men were excluded, always, and if Bucky had to say more than six words to change some higher-ups mind, he just told them keep your medal and get fucked instead. Having an irreplaceable title and a Senator-made public image had given him that freedom, even if it had given him hell, too. 'It was World War Two, and you even had a Japanese guy fighting on your team.'

'Jim's from Fresno, and he's a good man,' Bucky cut in by habit, almost sharply, and Sam laughed. Bucky's tenses were still wrong, but Sam didn't say anything. Bucky didn't know if it was on purpose that he let it slide, but he appreciated it. Jim had never moved back to California, marrying a WAC officer and living in Kansas with her until he died in ninety eight.

'Yeah, but you know, to kids like me, brats who grew up hearing stories about you, that sticks out,' he promised. 'But that's not what you came here for.'

'No, I came here 'cause I wanna sleep thru the night,' Bucky said frankly, talking to his knees. Sam nodded in Bucky's periphery. 'I came here 'cause there's nowhere else for me to go.'

'That's pretty much why everyone's here,' Sam agreed. Bucky nodded, then sighed.

'It seems pretty—intense,' he admitted. He waved a hand vaguely over the meeting space. It seemed impossible that people could talk that openly about their broken bits. He remembered how many soldiers lied and ignored their nightmares and shaking hands, desperate to not be sent home with cannon fever. It had seemed weak, then; it had seemed like you had to forfeit your right to be a man, to be taken seriously if you wanted to admit you were wiped out from the violence. He remembered how many people desperately wanted to pretend they were fine. He remembered pretending he was fine. A huge part of him wanted to keep pretending.

'Yeah, brother,' Sam said easily, 'we all got the same problems. Guilt, regret.' Something about the way Sam said it gave Bucky pause.

'D'you lose someone out there?' he asked. Sam nodded, holding Bucky's gaze. If he could talk about who he lost without hiding himself, maybe it was possible for Bucky to learn how to do that too. He didn't know how honest he could be, or how honest he could ever get; what Steve had been to him had been more than even a secret. It could have gotten them kicked out of their boarding houses, their apartments, gotten them arrested in the army or worse. Steve had had it hard enough and Bucky couldn't imagine it getting harder to keep him safe.

How ironic that Bucky had gotten him killed anyway.

'My wingman,' Sam said. 'We were ninety-eighth, Para-rescue. It was just a standard rescue op, nothing we hadn't done a thousand times before.' That was always the way things went, it seemed. People were fooled by their skill and that of their friends, fooled into thinking their ability to pull things off well might somehow protect them from getting shot and killed. At the end of the day, attrition and chance could take anybody.

'How did it happen?' Bucky asked.

'An RPG blew his dumb ass outta the sky,' Sam said. 'Right beside me, nothing I could do. It was like I was up there just to watch.'

'Shit,' Bucky cursed. ' _Shit_.'

'Yeah,' Sam agreed. He finally broke Bucky's gaze, but just to wave a friendly farewell to a leaving staff member. It was the young lady from the front desk, passing by the meeting room's front doors on her way out for the night. 'You know, after something like that, I had a hard time finding a reason to stay over there.' Bucky knew what that felt like. He wouldn't wish it on anyone. He'd somehow thought the end of his war would bring peace for the world. It sure didn't seem like much had changed. Vaccines, food, Internet, technology, and the world had recovered from the Great Depression and it would bounce back from the most recent one, sure, but things seemed bleak. He wondered if things ever didn't seem bleak.

'So, what,' Bucky began, 'you came home. Just like that.'

'Just like that,' Sam agreed. 'My tour finished. I didn't sign back up. I moved back to DC, stayed with my mom for an embarrassing while, went back to school, which the Air Force paid for. I started working here and I've learned how to look back without breaking down too often.' Bucky huffed a hard breath out his nose.

'And you're happy,' Bucky assumed.

'Well, the number of people giving me orders is down to about zero, so, hell yeah,' Sam said. Bucky laughed out loud at that. It broke the tension of the moment, and Sam grinned. 'What about you? It must've been something, waking up, huh? It was in the news they'd found you; they planned a funeral, then it was in the news that you weren't actually dead.' Bucky frowned.

'They planned my funeral?' he asked. Sam shrugged.

'Yeah,' he admitted. He sounded sheepish all of a sudden, just a little, like he had thought Bucky had known and wouldn't have said anything if he had known Bucky hadn't. 'They started to, at least. Speculation about the Arlington Commandos Memorial over where your parents and sisters are in Brooklyn. But you weren't dead, so. Real buzz when that came out. And a week later you were kicking alien ass in New York.' Bucky looked away. 'Didn't feel like kicking ass, huh?' he pressed.

'Aliens came out of the fucking sky,' Bucky snapped. 'Actual fucking aliens. Then we killed one hundred and twenty seven in the fight. Then two hundred and eight of them in a single fell swoop closing the space door.' Bucky couldn't help but mime a swoop with his hand, dim and sad. Sam raised his brows at the exact numbers. They were the best ones Bucky could get his hands on. He had had to know. ‘Seventy eight civilians had died in car explosions or in building damage or by falling debris or by alien guns. Fourteen NYPD officers and nine members of the National Guard had lost their lives against weapons and enemies beyond their pay grade. No, it was not kicking ass. It was like a passive genocide. Had to close the door, had to stop destruction, had to do a lot of things.'

'I know what that's like,' Sam agreed. There was a silence, but it didn't feel tense at all. Bucky felt guilty, suddenly, for talking like this when it was clear the VA was closing down for the night. He was sure Sam wanted to get home. 'Are you getting out?' Sam asked when Bucky was about to make an excuse to go. It was like he was suspicious Bucky would never come back. Bucky cleared his throat.

'Yeah, I don't know,' he said. 'I'm trying. It's not so easy when you're Captain America.'

'No one would blame you for wanting the fight to be over,' Sam told him. Bucky shrugged.

'Lots of people would,' he pointed out. 'But that doesn't matter, not really. It's actually hard because Captain America is a piece of technology, and legally, that technology is owned by the people who give orders. They don't like it when you don't take their orders. They don’t like it when you say you’re getting out.'

'No shit,' Sam said, sounding confused as hell.

'No shit,' Bucky agreed. 'It's been almost a year since I woke up, and maybe four months since I got served the papers, and I've been trying to get out that long. Tony, uh, Tony Stark, he's loaned me one of his lawyers, some dame who specialises in proprietary tech laws. She's trying to get me out, and she's working hard, but.' He shook his head. It had been almost four months so far, and it was probably the most frustrating thing Bucky had ever had to deal with. He loved New York, and Stark Tower had just started to feel like a new home when he’d been forced to pack up and leave.

'In the meantime,’ he continued, 'I’m living here and being a hostile witness property every other day.' Sam laughed, loud and bright. 'It might go faster if I cooperated, you know? Gave the samples and whatever.'

'Played ball,' Sam agreed.

'I just don't fucking want to,' Bucky said. He leaned back in his chair. 'I got drafted when I was twenty two, and that was nearly six or, uh, seventy four years ago, depending on how you count it. I just want—' He stopped, because he didn't really know what he wanted. He didn't want to figure out how to work in SHIELD's system; he didn't want to re-enlist; he didn't want any of it. He just wanted to go home, but he couldn't, so wanting that was pointless. Sam stared at him, and Bucky avoided the gaze. 'I don't know what I'd do with myself if I got out.'

'When you get out,' Sam began, 'you should try Ultimate Fighting.' Bucky chuckled, thinking of his unnatural strength compared to the MMA fighters at his gym. It would be cheating, surely. 'Just a great, little idea off the top of my head. But seriously, you can do anything you want to do. That's the beauty of getting out; that's what you have to look forward to. So, what makes you happy?'

Steve had made him happy. He'd had Steve their whole lives, so he had never tried to find anything else to give him bliss. Nothing had mattered but Steve, but making sure he had enough money in an old jam jar to pay for a doctor next time Steve started getting tired and splotchy with fever and sickness. Steve had been like fucking sunshine. Steve had been like a warm bed and a home and someone to annoy when he was bored and someone to share joy with when he had some. Steve had been his best friend and his lover and his everything. Steve had been stubborn and idiotic and beautiful and started fights he couldn’t win for no other reason than the fact that Steve believed in his heart of hearts that strong people didn’t get to treat weaker people like they didn’t matter. Steve had had an absurd, idealistic, immovable moral compass and he’d take a swing at anyone who struck out at someone who couldn’t strike back, never mind that a sane person would have counted Steve as too weak to fight back too. Steve had made him so God damned happy, even when things were hard and everything they had was a secret. At least it had been theirs. He wanted Steve back more fiercely than he had wanted air when he was drowning in a plane in the Arctic. It was a pointless thing to want. Wanting it made him useless.

 

'I don't know,' he said instead.

'So,' Sam said, hesitantly, like he was asking because he wanted to know and not because Bucky might deal with trauma better if he asked. It was nice to know he had his curiosities and that he was getting something out of this conversation, if not as much as Bucky. 'Why did you fight in New York, then? If you want to get out.' Bucky met Sam's eyes, and Sam took his turn to look away.

'People would have died,' Bucky said. 'A lot more than did. A guy with a sceptre wanted to force the world to kneel before him. So I stepped up.'

'You stepped up,' Sam repeated. Bucky nodded.

'Yeah,' he agreed. 'I don't like bullies.'

^^^

'Hey there,' Bucky called, creeping in the doorway. He knew the second Peggy looked at him that it was her, really her, and he thanked his lucky stars. She smiled at him tiredly. He wished he could find a way to make things easy enough for her that she wouldn't be tired. He wished he could fix everything for her. 'How's my best girl?'

'Oh, flattered by your attention,' she said, pressing a frail hand to her chest mockingly. Bucky swooped to kiss her cheek and settled in the chair next to her bed. 'You look dreadful,' she told him.

'Wow, I guess I'm not your best girl, huh?' he grumbled. He bet he did look terrible. He hadn't slept properly in weeks. May was coming up in a few months and Bucky couldn't help but count down the weeks then days till Steve's death in the back of his mind like a sick dog waiting until he had to crawl away to die. 'That hurts, Pegs; you gotta know that hurts.' She rolled her eyes. 'You know, you roll those eyes any harder, you're gonna give yourself a concussion,' he told her, and she laughed the papery laugh of someone with old, tired lungs that were gonna give up soon.

Bucky missed the laughs that had come from her belly in great guffaws. He'd heard them so little in the war, and he'd always somehow thought he'd get to hear that laugh more often when they went home. He didn't know why he'd always assumed she'd come back to Brooklyn with him and Steve, but she had in fact ended up there for a few years after the war. She'd eventually moved with her husband to work at a SHIELD HQ in Maryland somewhere, no doubt getting treated terribly while doing the best work there. They never talked about that. Neither of them wanted to remind themselves any more than they had to of what they lost.

'Stop,' she told him. 'God, do you always need to be such an arse?'

'It's what you love about me,' he said. She didn't disagree. 'How are you today?' She shrugged grandly.

'I'm an old woman, in a bed, in a hospice,' she told him. 'How good can I really be? But Suzanne is coming by later today with, oh, something. I don't remember.' She said that with such ease. Peggy had always done the hard things so easily.

'It's probably more of that banana bread,' he said, thinking of how often Peggy's youngest daughter baked and brought things to the hospice. He'd never had the banana bread, only her muffins, but apparently it was to die for. The muffins had been pretty damn good too; Bucky had asked for the recipe. Suzanne had texted him a link right then and there. The future was amazing, sometimes. 'You probably won't save me any.'

'It shouldn't be so hard; you come by often enough it would keep,' she mused. 'It must be that good.'

'That's why it's that so annoying you never save some for me,' he pointed out. She laughed again. He smiled fondly at her, and something in his face made her laugh stop and her dark eyes turn serious.

'What's bothering you?' she asked. He shook his head and pulled a face: nothing. 'Come on. What.'

'Same things that are always bothering me,' he told her. He didn't know what she remembered always bothered him, but even when she didn't remember much, she usually accepted that answer. He supposed he'd always been moody enough that no matter where in time Peggy was, she could imagine what he was being a dick about.

'I miss him too, you know,' she promised him. Apparently today, she remembered he was still grieving Steve. That stung his eyes. Things were too fresh. He'd spoken about Steve more than he had since—since forever, it seemed, when Nat visited him a few days ago; he hadn't thought he could sleep worse, but that conversation certainly proved him wrong. 'We all could have really built a life together.' He nodded, and he refused to cry. It was so rare he got to talk to Peggy, at least when it was actually Peggy. He didn't want to waste this time with his sad memories. He didn't want to waste time on what they never got to have. She said these vague things about the three of them, like she imagined she and Steve could have worked for SHIELD while living together with a bachelor, as tho that arrangement could have given them the real family they all wanted. He wondered what people would have said about that. He was pretty sure it would have been so great not a one of them would have cared a bit.

'Yeah,' he agreed. 'But I mean, you lived. You know? Steve woulda been proud of what you accomplished. I know I am.' Peggy followed his gaze to the mess of photos on her bureau. Bucky had met her husband once, before David had even known Peggy, and he was a good man. He had died three years ago, happy, old, and in his sleep next to his darling wife. A good way to go, maybe the best. Bucky had to imagine that they had been very happy together. Judging by the photos and Peggy's stories, they had been. Peggy had had three kids, which in Bucky's opinion was the perfect amount of kids, and both of her daughters were university professors, one at Georgetown and the other all the way in Montreal. Her son had become a fireman; he'd been killed in 2003, putting out a house fire in Detroit. His wife, Carol, had moved to DC after he'd died, and she and her kids had lived with Peggy for about half a year before they bought a new house just outside the city. Peggy had talked of that time so fondly; every memory she seemed to have of her family was a fond one. It was beautiful.

'Yes,' she agreed. 'I have lived a life, haven't I?' He nodded, searching those amazing photos again with his eyes. 'It makes me so sad you never got to live yours.'

'Peggy,' he complained. She would have swatted him if he'd been close enough.

'Accept someone's concern, Barnes, for God's sakes,' she snapped. 'My word. It's like you think you still have to be the stoic captain. No one's morale is counting on you, you know.' She coughed and he reached for the water. She waved him off and he took her at her word. The hand on her frail chest now was pained, not sarcastic. Bucky liked the latter much better; he saw the former too frequently. 'Not even my morale. I can take care of that myself.'

'I know,' he said instead. 'I really do,' he promised when she levelled him with an unimpressed look. She seemed barely satisfied by that. 'What? Go on, if you insist.'

'I always insist,' she said, taking her turn to grumble. 'I don't know, darling,' she said, a new habit of hers, but one he quite liked. It suited her. He wondered if he had just never heard it during wartime, or if losing him and Steve had made her insistent the people she loved knew it with every sentence and pet name. 'You saved the world, you know. We're the ones who rather mucked it up.'

'Nah,' he said, shrugging her off. 'It's not so bad.'

'Buck, the institution I helped create is suing you for your own body,' she pointed out. 'Who's that bloody racist Steve always said would get birth control and abortions into the United States?'

'Maggie Sanger?' he guessed.

'Gosh, it's like that whole nonsense all over again,' she said. 'It's your body; you're not a drafted man anymore. That should be the end of it. Doctor Erskine would have been perfectly happy with you returning to a shop after the war, leaving the Army. I think he might have even wanted it for you.' Bucky nodded. Doctor Erskine had been nothing if he had not been kind. He had been an amazing man. His death was still one of the biggest wastes Bucky could have ever imagined.

'Yeah,' Bucky agreed. 'I don't know what I'm gonna do now, Peggy. When this whole thing with SHIELD is over, if I'm really done with them, what do I do?' He shifted in the chair, trying to get comfortable. 'If something like what happened in New York happens, don't I have a responsibility? I can do stuff no one else can, you know? I might have—a duty to step up. I don't know.'

'Bucky?' she said, and his head snapped up at the tone of her voice. Her eyes were big and brimming all of a sudden, and he did his absolute best to hide the falling of his face. 'Bucky, my God, is it really you?'

'Yeah, Pegs, it's me,' he promised, forcing a smile. It felt fake and he was sure it looked pained. Hopefully, Peggy couldn't tell. He leaned forward in his chair, taking her shaking hand. 'I'm here.'

'You're _alive_! God, I've been waiting to see you for so long,' she sobbed, in disbelief. He'd seen this moment a hundred times, it seemed, and he hated knowing again and again how much she had hoped he would come back somehow. He hated himself for coming back too late. He hated that he had come back to someone who found him again and again, but only because she was slowly, slowly losing herself. 'You came back!' He kissed her hand and her tissue-thin skin.

'Yeah, come on,' he said, trying to laugh for her. That usually stopped the tears. He couldn't manage it. 'I had to come back and see if you got yourself that date, didn't I? Come on, tell me about him.'

'About who?' she asked, a tiny, terrible, wet laugh. 'Bucky, it's only been a year; I've been waiting. I knew you couldn't be dead; I just knew it.' He froze.

God, she had never said that before. She lifted the hand holding hers and kissed the back of his palm. He stared at her and was thankful her eyes were closed, because if she could see his face. His heart was breaking, into a thousand fucking pieces. 'God, you came back,' she sighed. 'There was never a detonation; you must have disarmed the weapons in the crash somehow. How did you get out? Did Howard find you?' She opened his eyes and he tried to pull together. She usually told him all about David, about the way he proposed and sometimes she even told him about the way she'd taken the absolute piss out of him for wondering if they should name their son Bucky, of all the idiot names. God, he preferred that story. He had had no idea she'd waited at all. He didn't know she'd lost hope in him; he had thought she'd moved on.

'Yeah, Peggy, Howard found me,' he agreed, because there was no point in explaining. He didn't hide well enough.

'Bucky, oh, what is it?' she asked. 'What's wrong?'

'Nothing,' he promised, even tho everything in the entire universe was wrong. 'Nothing at all. I'm here. I was always gonna come back for you.'

'I knew it,' she said, and she smiled.

^^^

'Do you want to share today?' Sam asked. 'You’ve been quiet all meeting.' Bucky looked up, surprised. He was generally quiet when he came to the VA, but Sam had been pushing him to be less so. The expectant gazes of the eight other veterans put his teeth on edge; Bucky forced himself to remember that they’d all come here for the same reasons he had. His war might have been a lot different than theirs, and to increase morale after the war, almost all his ops had been declassified. A lot of these people probably knew most of his stories from the books, the movies, the television adaptations. Bucky found that hard to deal with, but it did make some things easier. Most people assumed they knew so much about him that keeping his old secrets wasn’t very hard.

'I’ve been sleeping badly,' Bucky admitted when Sam smiled encouragingly. 'I keep having nightmares, mostly about the plane crash.'

'Must’ve been scary, going down,' Sam put in, trying to make Bucky keep going. He shifted in his chair and shrugged.

'I crashed on purpose, so that isn’t really what—' he broke off. He rubbed his mouth and forced himself to continue. Every other person here talked openly, if not easily, and they would wait as long as he needed to make his voice come out without breaking. 'I thought the impact would kill me. If not that, I thought the HYDRA weapons on board would detonate when I hit the ice shelf. I thought it was gonna be a quick death.'

'It wasn’t?' Helena asked, quiet. Bucky shook his head. His eyes fell to a scuff mark on the tile.

'No, the nuclear missiles didn’t go off in the crash,' he replied. 'I looked it up after I’d been awake for a while; they were still armed and live, since they were made with the Tesseract, when the oil team found me. SHIELD still has them, disarmed in storage facility New Mexico, apparently with no plans to use them, but who knows. Woulda blown up nearly every major city in the continental US if they’d launched, if I hadn’t taken the Valkyrie down in time. The impact gave me a hell of a concussion—I could barely see my vision was so doubled—but it—It didn’t kill me like I thought, like I wanted it to.'

The room was silent as Bucky tried to go on. He wasn’t sure if the silence was tense or patient, but he felt fit to burst. Thinking about the crash, talking about the cold, freezing water: it felt too close, too real. He stopped his leg from jogging up and down. He had to get a grip; it had been decades, or almost eleven months. He had to get over this. He couldn’t be afraid of it anymore.

'The windscreen was shattered,' Bucky continued. His breath was shaky and so were his hands. He crossed his arms and resisted the urge to fidget any more than that. 'The heat of the hull melted ice and the plane sank downwards. Slush and water poured in thru the glass and I started to drown. I didn’t want that. I was willing to die to stop those bombs—eager, even—but I didn’t know it would mean drowning. I thought it would be quick.'

'It took a long time,' he said. 'The slush, the water: it rose slow, and eventually I couldn’t tilt my head up anymore. The control panel had warped and it pinned me, just fucking _shattered_ one of my legs when I hit the ice.' He shook his head. 'I couldn’t push the panel off; I couldn’t get free. I wasn’t—I wasn’t strong enough to get out. I don’t know what I would have done if it came off. Swam to Canada? Greenland? Unable to see, broken legs? I didn’t even know where I was, just that the risk of the bombs going off wouldn’t destroy a city, only me.'

'It must have been rough,' Sam prompted.

'I felt my heart stop,' Bucky admitted. He looked up and forced a smile to keep from crying. 'The water went over me and my body made me try to breathe and ice got into my lungs—The serum kept me awake thru all of it and then I felt my lungs full of cold and my heart stopped in my chest, just stuttered and froze and stopped. It felt like a lifetime but it was probably only five minutes until my brain stopped too.'

'So. I thought it was gonna be a quick death but it wasn’t,' Bucky choked out. 'I keep dreaming about it and when I wake up, I swear to God, I can feel the ice in my lungs again. No matter how much I cough, it won’t get out.'

'Physical sensations are a big part of post-traumatic stress. Remembering they’re only phantom, that they can’t really injure you: that’s hard,' Sam explained. He made it sound simple, clinical, normal. 'But, Bucky, you didn’t die in a plane crash. You didn’t really drown. You were trapped in the ice for a long time, but they found you. You are alive.' That made Bucky meet Sam’s eyes, and he looked around the room at the other survivors. All of them were still here too; they had all made it out. They’d all gotten to come home.

'Yeah,' Bucky agreed. 'Yeah, I know that, you know, logically.' He shook his head. 'But I was dead, for a long time, in the ways that seem to count now. My—the world went on without me. You know, sometimes I feel like you guys are all so _fucking_ _lucky_. You went thru hell too; I wouldn’t dare suggest otherwise. But when you got discharged or invalided home, home was still here. It might have felt alien and different but—'

'At least your world didn’t disappear while you were gone,' he said. 'Everybody I loved, everybody I even knew got old and got dead. One person is still alive, but she has Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t even know me anymore.'

'This time isn’t home,' Bucky finished. 'I don’t know if it ever will be, because everything I had and everything I loved about my life is about seventy years behind us.'

'Maybe leaving it behind is the best thing,' Sam offered. 'When you woke up, when you learned how long you’d been frozen, you obviously wished you could go back.'

'No shit,' Bucky snapped. 'Last time I saw my baby sister, she was twelve, and she died four years ago. Becca’s dead too, and my parents, my friends. If I’d gone home in forty five, I’da seen my sisters grow up. I’da seen them get married. Fuck, I was in love back then too, and there’s no way to get any of that back.'

'No,' Sam said softly. 'But there’s an opportunity to start over.'

'We can be your new family,' Robbie said, sounding almost nervous to offer it. 'We lean on each other a lot already; you can lean on us too, Cap.' Bucky smiled, and even tho it hurt, it felt real.

'Look at the circle here, Buck,' Sam said. 'You might have lost a lot to time, but you’ve got a new support system forming too.'

'I do Big Brothers Big Sisters,' Helena offered. 'If you miss your baby sister, there are lots of kids in DC who need somebody to act like a Big Brother.'

'There are lots of ways of forming those same connections,' Sam promised. 'There’s hope. Not even the ice you feel should keep you from trying to hold onto the idea of hope.'

'I hope,' Bucky began, trying to ease the tension in the air, 'that I can go a day without accidentally shutting down my computer. I hope I can become as proficient with technology as the average ninety three year old.' Helena laughed big and loud at that. Bucky smiled at her.

'You’re not really ninety three, of course,' Robbie said by way of asking. ‘No one ever really mentions it, but you’re, like, our age. You’re not, like, some—You were just a kid like us when you saved the world.’ Bucky shook his head.

'No, not really,' Bucky said, unsure what he meant. 'I’ll be turning twenty eight in March. Not long.' Sam moved them onto a new topic, and Bucky had to admit he wasn’t listening. No one pressed him on it, and he stared at that scuff mark on the floor.

Things were bad. Things were hard. They might, just might, be able to get better.

^^^

Bucky got home as his neighbour was heading down to do laundry. Kate was sweet, a nurse, and she reminded Bucky a little of Steve's ma. Missus Rogers had had a rough time of it, as a single mother with the sickest kid Buck thought God could have ever made. She'd loved her boy, and Bucky thought she'd even loved him, and she'd been the same type of compassionate nosy as Kate. Kate didn't have kids, no, but she did have blonde hair and a sweet, sweet smile.

'Hey,' Kate said, greeting Bucky as she closed her door, balancing her laundry on a hip. Dames nowadays did most everything by themselves; Bucky resisted the urge to take the not-that-heavy basket and carry it downstairs for her. 'How was your day?'

'Swell,' Bucky said, polite and untrue. He had had a hell of day. The VA meetings always felt like a delayed antidote; they helped, but first he had to deal with poisonous memories and the sensation of his muscles atrophying under imaginary venom in his blood. 'You seem pretty wiped out, if you don't mind me saying, miss.' Kate laughed a bit and hefted her basket up higher onto her hip.

'Kate, Bucky, call me Kate. And yeah, just finished my first week in infectious disease,' she admitted. 'It’s always hard in a new ward. My scrubs are pretty gross.'

'I'll keep my distance,' he teased, fiddling with his keys absently.

'Not too far, I hope,' she said flirtatiously, and he didn't know how to reply to that, so he gave an awkward smile and a nod. Ladies flirted with him when he was out and about more than he cared to admit; it unsettled him. He'd been fairly popular in his time too since he was good-looking and could dance real well, but he'd tempered interest in him pretty efficiently by always asking girls to bring a friend for Stevie. Girls were so rarely willing to look past the tiny guy in front of them to see what made Steve literally the best person in all of Brooklyn and maybe the entirety of New York state or the universe, but it kept him from having so many dates with somebody that a girl might want him to ask her to marry them. He didn't know how to avoid what he didn't want now; he didn't know what was polite. He’d have to ask Pepper next time they talked.

'Oh,' she called, as she stopped in front of the stairwell. 'I think you left your stereo on?'

'Oh, sorry,' he said, even tho he definitely hadn't. 'I'll remember.'

'It didn't bother me,' she promised. 'It was nice, hearing those old tunes. Have a nice night, Bucky.'

'See you around, Kate,' he called back. He looked at his door. It was shut tightly, but sure enough, when he softly, softly tried the knob, it opened. Music was roaring out of the stereo he'd bought, too loud for his enhanced hearing, an oldie's channel he never listened to. It was nostalgic and hit him too close to home. It put him on one hell of an edge, just as it buffeted against his eardrums.

He slid his shield off the shelf by the door, noting absolutely no movement or disruption in his kitchen. He used the stereo as his only clue, sneaking the hall until he saw who was sitting on his couch. He sighed, leaning his shield against the oversized, open doorframe. He shook his head as he stepped into the open, pissed off before fucking Nick Fury could say a God damned word. He turned the stereo to a reasonable God damned volume.

'I didn't appreciate last time you broke in, and I don't appreciate it now,' he said, no preamble. Fury looked up at him, and Bucky's eyes tightened at the way he hugged his arm to his side, like it was broken. 'What are you doing in my house?' he asked, his voice softer despite himself.

'I am sorry about this,' Fury said slowly. 'My wife kicked me out.' That phrase sounded like code for something. Bucky hated code.

'Didn't know you were married,' Bucky said, trying to explain that he didn't understand. Fury pulled out his tiny phone and typed. Bucky placed a hand in a pocket, holding his phone in case it vibrated with an explanation.

'There's a lot you don't know about me,' Fury said as he typed and Bucky couldn't help the swell of anger that brought up.

'I know,' he snapped. 'That's the fucking problem. That’s why I don’t fucking trust you.' He flicked the light switch on, and Fury flicked the lamp that lit up off. Bucky frowned. Fury turned his phone: EARS EVERYWHERE.

Bucky sighed, looking around his apartment. He would bet any money, all the money he had and all Tony’s money too, that Fury had ordered this place bugged personally, vindictively, like suing him and taking him from New York wasn't enough. He wondered how much of his privacy had been stolen without him knowing, how long the bugs had been there, how much SHIELD knew that they shouldn't have. Fury turned the phone back in and typed something else.

'I'm sorry to drop in on you,' Fury said sincerely and to fill the silence. 'The buddy I usually stay with is out of town.' He showed Bucky the phone again: SHIELD COMPROMISED. Even tho Bucky had never trusted SHIELD, that message terrified him. He didn't know how far SHIELD's power reached, not for sure, but he imagined if SHIELD was infiltrated by something worse, a lot of people might die. God, a huge amount of people could die, and if Fury took refuge in his apartment of all places, he really didn't have anywhere to go.

''S all right,' Bucky said casually, his mind racing. 'Jeez, you know, Nat never mentioned her either. Who knows about your wife?'

YOU AND ME.

'Oh, just my friends,' Fury said. Fuck, Fury hadn't even been able to go to Nat. That seemed impossible. He and Fury weren't friends, not even close, but Bucky didn't press him on it. 'You mind if I stay?' Bucky read the final message. WE NEED A SAFEHOUSE. Fuck, Bucky thought again. Fury might not have come to him because he was the only one outside the potential corruption; he had come to warn Bucky that whatever had collapsed might crush him too. Bucky looked down at his shield for a moment, his fingers itching to pick it up suddenly, looking up when he saw Fury begin to move. The man stood slowly, painfully.

'Nah,' Bucky said. 'You’re welcome to it.'

Fury opened his mouth to say something, when a bullet burst thru Bucky's wall. It buried itself in Fury's back, and Bucky dropped as two more holes appeared in his drywall. Fury fell, hit bad and hit hard. Bucky grabbed the lapels of his stupid leather coat and dragged him behind the wall below the open shelves, behind cover. Bucky's heart pounded and he could scarcely remember a time when he would drag a wounded soldier to safety without calling for Steve; he felt panicked suddenly, like the fact he hadn't shouted for Steve yet was negligence, was letting a man die. As he pressed his fingers along Nick's chest, uselessly looking for exit wounds, Fury grabbed his wrist. He pressed a USB drive against the inside of Bucky's wrist weakly. Bucky took it.

'Trust no one,' he ordered, before his eye slid shut. Bucky's door banged open; he had Fury's service pistol out of the man's shoulder holster, in his hands and aimed up before the wood even hit the wall. Kate stood there, her own gun at the ready.

'Captain Barnes,' she said cordially, sweeping for threats. The threat was outside.

'Kate?' Bucky demanded, as she swept the area with her semi-automatic pistol like a God damn professional. _SHIELD_ , he realized, dismissing the second invasion of his privacy for the moment. 'Call for medics, now,' he ordered, because he was still Captain America and Captain America didn't let people who came for his protection die, even if they were dirty, litigious spies. He had protected Loki, for Christ’s sake, before Thor agreed to stand down. Kate touched the com in her ear as she knelt at Fury's head.

'Foxtrot is down,' she said. 'I repeat, Foxtrot is down. I need EMTs on site immediately.'

'Do you have a twenty on the shooter?' someone asked from the other side of the line, audible just barely to Bucky’s enhanced ear. Bucky peered over the lip of the open shelves and spotted, just a second, a shooter on the next roof, a sharp, strange gleam of metal.

 **  
** 'Tell them I'm in pursuit,' he said. He grabbed his shield, slinging it onto his arm. He hated that this part felt familiar.


	2. when the sun is in your eyes

Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognize others as persons  
—not by those who are oppressed, exploited and unrecognized.  
_It is not the unloved who initiate disaffection_ , but those who cannot love because they only love themselves.  
It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate terror, but the violent… _It is not the tyrannized who initiate despotism, but the tyrants._

\- Freire, the Pedagogy of the Oppressed

^^^

'We need to take him,' Agent Hill said from behind them. Bucky turned to her from where he stood behind his friend, giving Hill a strained smile.

'Thanks,' he said. 'We'll be out in a minute.' Hill took the cue easily and shut the door behind her. Bucky moved closer to Nat. He'd been standing a few feet behind her for what seemed like hours, over Fury's body. He glanced at the digital clock on the wall. 01:56. Fury had only been dead less than an hour. The tight feeling in Bucky's heart at seeing his friend grieve made time pass slower than it usually did.

Grief could do all sorts of horrible things.

'Natasha,' he said softly, touching the middle of her back, soft and gentle, his palm flat on her spine. She didn't reply to him, just staring at her dead boss. She placed a hand on his forehead; Bucky imagined it was cold by now. The movement was tender, soft, and more heartfelt than maybe anything Bucky had seen from Nat in the whole time he’d known her. Suddenly, she tore her hand away and stalked out, blowing past Agent Hill and forcing Bucky to hurry after her.

'Natasha!' he called, concerned as all hell. She was shaken. She was never, ever shaken.

'Why was Fury in your apartment?' she demanded, stopping on a dime and getting too close to his face to be anything but confrontational.

'I don't know,' Bucky lied, because Rumlow was coming up behind them. Bucky had never found answers as to what asset he was supposed to join, but he had always made sure to avoid Rumlow and anyone he knew took their orders from him. The idea that his restraint against hurting Rumlow was something to be corrected, surgically or otherwise, was repulsive and monstrous.

'Captain,' he said politely. 'They want you at SHIELD, to give a statement about what happened.' Bucky didn't take his eyes of Natasha, watching her hidden emotions carefully. Rumlow cleared his throat. 'Captain Barnes, STRIKE Team is supposed to escort you back to SHIELD.'

'STRIKE Team can get fucked,' Bucky told him, raising his brows as if to dare Rumlow to disagree. 'I gave a statement to the police. Get a fucking copy of that. I don't work for you.'

'Fury is dead,' Rumlow said, looking between Nat and Bucky. He seemed to search Nat's face for a reaction to that, the sick fuck. Her jaw tightened but that was all. It was more of a tell than Bucky was used to her having. 'A better man might leave his problems with a dead man behind to get him some justice,' Rumlow added, trying to tempt Bucky into cooperating.

'Why do you think I told the police everything Fury told me?' Bucky said, leaving the sentence vague to intrigue Rumlow. 'Get fucked,' he said again. Rumlow scowled like he wanted to hit him, but he sighed and moved back down the hallway.

'You're a terrible liar,' Nat told him, the second Rumlow was out of earshot behind her. Bucky sighed. He touched Nat's arm and she let him lead her into a small, empty private room off the main hallway. He shut the door behind them. He probably stood too close to her, nearly close enough to feel the heat of her body, but for some reason, he couldn't help it. He stood close enough to her that she had to look up to meet his eyes. He wondered, if he were still in his own body, not one that was well over six feet tall, if she would still have to crane her neck. He'd been this tall for years; it was hard to remember.

'I'm not trying to lie to you,' he promised, his voice barely a whisper. He remembered to take his hand off of her arm. 'I was trying to lie to Rumlow. Look, Fury told me SHIELD was compromised, that he and I both needed safe houses, and that I shouldn't trust anyone.'

'If he needed a safe house, why wouldn't he come to me? To Hill?' Nat asked just as quietly, suspicious. Bucky looked away.

'He told me not to trust anyone,' he said. 'Even after I mentioned you.' Nat swallowed, her lip trembling for the barest of seconds before she lowered her chin, looking down. 'Fury also gave me this,' he added, letting the USB drive hide mostly in the cover of his sleeve. He apparently didn't understand surveillance tech still, since his apartment had been bugged without him knowing. He didn't want this to be seen by anyone other than his own friends. Fury might not have trusted Natasha, but Bucky did.

'I got that off a pirating ship,' Nat said. 'Fury had me collect data during a rescue mission.'

'What's on it?' he demanded. She looked back up at him, her eyes flashing.

'I only act like I know everything, Barnes,' she snapped.

'You know more than I do right now,' he said, guessing.

'Maybe not,' she said. 'Just a hunch. Tell me about the shooter.'

'He was strong,' Bucky told her, immediately. 'Strong as me, at least. He knew how to throw my shield.'

'Your shield is a giant frisbee,' she sneered, meaner than she usually was, but Bucky knew her heart had to be hurting. He didn't let her condescension smear him. 'Any asshole can throw it.'

'No, the vibranium alters the physics,' Bucky corrected. 'It absorbs or redistributes a lot of your force; it takes skill to hit a target. If I hadn't caught it, he would have hit me. Fuck, he woulda _broke_ me.' She eyed the shield still lashed to his back. He felt safer and more secure with the familiar weight, but he had been stared at in hospital hallways by nurses, doctors and patients alike while waiting to see Fury's surgery and then to see the body.

'He had a metal arm,' Bucky added, thinking of it. Nat's eyes flashed to him then. 'He caught the edge of my shield with it, threw it back so hard that when I caught it, I skidded three feet.'

'I know who killed Fury,' she said suddenly. 'I'm sure. The slugs they dug out of him? They dug one just like it out of me about five years ago. Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists, the ones who do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years.'

'That sounds made up,' Bucky said regretfully. 'Sounds like a ghost story.'

'I've met him,' she corrected. 'I saw him once when I was a girl, growing up in the Red Room. He was on his way to a mission and seeing him was like seeing the Boogeyman, but with a grenade launcher and a custom scope. Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran; somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me.' Nat lifted her shirt and her sweater, showing Bucky the jagged scar of a thru-and-thru wound, a second dipping below her jeans, probably the one that had lingered in her body, pressed against bone. 'Bye-bye, bikinis.'

'I can honestly promise that you would still look great in them,' he said before he could help himself. Nat almost gave him a grin.

'The thing is, going after him is a dead end,' she told him. 'I know; I've tried. He killed someone I was responsible for and I couldn't even track him down. Like you said, he's a ghost story.' Bucky didn't like any part of this. It niggled a part of his brain, like there was something obvious he wasn't putting together. He ran his thumb along the drive in his pocket. It was their only clue, and maybe the only thing that would slot the niggle into place.

'Should we see what the ghost wants?' he asked. Nat grinned.

^^^

'Captain,' someone called. Nat was gone from his side, Bucky noticed when he turned. It was like she had evaporated. A man in an expensive suit came leisurely down the street, as Bucky waited. He didn't know the man, didn't recognise his lined face. 'Captain Barnes,' he said again when he got closer. 'It's an honour to meet you. My father served in the hundred-and-first.'

'Can I help you?' Bucky asked. He didn't know this man, and with Fury dead, he didn't intend to meet too many other suits who might be giving orders. He understood why Nat had made herself disappear for this conversation; she had to appear to still take his orders, but convincing Bucky to go back to SHIELD right now would not help her find the Soldier. He also was pretty sure she was still within earshot, still able to cover him if something went wrong. Sweeping his eye over the man's suit, he felt sure he wasn't armed, but that didn't mean the sleek black car he'd slid out of at the corner didn't hold an arsenal and STRIKE Team Alpha.

'My name is Alexander Pierce,' he said, introducing himself. 'I'm the American representative for the World Security Council.' He extended his hand for Bucky to shake.

'Ah,' Bucky said, shaking the offered palm. 'One of the people who ordered a nuclear strike on over a million Manhattan civilians last year. It's an honour.' He kept his face bare, flat, free of the disdain he felt. Pierce's eyes tightened infinitesimally at that.

'I was wondering if you would come back to SHIELD,' Pierce continued, deciding to ultimately not challenge Bucky on his sarcasm and disrespect, 'to discuss what happened to Nick.'

'I gave the police a statement,' Bucky offered, making to continue down the street. 'That's all I got, I'm afraid.' A hand on his arm stopped him, not by force, but because Bucky wasn't quite willing to yank himself away like a scared toddler.

'I think you and I both know that the questions I have are ones the police didn't ask,' he said. His voice was hard and strained. 'Look, Nick was my friend. We've known each other for years. I'm the one who made him Director of SHIELD.'

'Well, I'm sorry for your loss,' Bucky said. 'But I hadn't talked to Fury in months, not since he served me a subpoena. I wasn't planning on talking to him until he showed up.'

'Why was Fury in your apartment?' Pierce asked, pointedly. Bucky stepped back, letting a woman pass the sidewalk between them. Pierce tracked his movements. Bucky didn't step forward again, leaving about a yard between them intentionally.

'His wife kicked him out,' Bucky said, because that was what the bugs would have heard. 'You'll have to pass along my condolences to her for me. Whatever my problems with Fury, I have every sympathy for his widow. I'm sorry the shooter I pursued got away. I would have liked to have seen her get justice.'

Pierce didn't reply to that, asking another question instead: 'Did you know your apartment was bugged?'

'Why, did you order bugs placed there?' Bucky fired back.

'Fury did,' Pierce replied. 'He's the one who put them there.'

'Seems like Fury answered to you,' Bucky said with a shrug. Pierce sighed.

'See, I took a seat on the Council not because I wanted to but because Nick asked me to, because we were both realists,' he explained.

'I don’t like the word realist,' Bucky said. 'In my experience, the people who use it are actually cynics, and they are far more likely to use what they see as a lesser evil to install peace.' It was often used by people who thought that reality was worse than it was. It was used by people who had forgotten that all children smiled and loved their parents, who had forgotten that most people wanted good things, who had forgotten that stopping the people who wanted bad things wasn't worth it if it sliced smiles off those children and left their world to burn. It wasn't worth the price of taking away good. Bucky had believed that so wholeheartedly he'd crashed a plane and drowned and froze to death. If he'd been on an American vessel heading for Japan, he would have crashed that one into a fucking ice shelf too.

'We knew, Nick and I, that despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, that to building a better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down,' Pierce replied, and it sounded like a correction. Bucky held back a frown, trying to listen patiently and at least appearing to be open. 'That makes enemies. Those people call you dirty because you got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today makes me really, really angry.'

Bucky looked away, sighing. He didn't know if Fury had been a good man, if he had been making a better world, or if he'd become more and more terrified that he couldn't until it was too late to fix his own trail of destruction behind him. He supposed, if Fury were dead, all that mattered was making sure his destruction stopped with him. All that mattered was making sure whatever had poisoned what Fury had believed in didn't poison everything else around it.

'Captain,' Pierce began again, after a long, silent moment. 'You were the last one to see Nick alive. I don't think that's an accident, and I don't think you do either. So I'm gonna ask again, why was he there?'

'I'm sorry,' Bucky said, 'but if my apartment was bugged by SHIELD, you can find out for yourself. You'll be able to hear his last words, just like I did. You knew him better; maybe they’ll help you out more than they did me.'

'That's not good enough,' Pierce snapped, stepping forward and closing the gap between them. 'Someone murdered my friend, and I am going to find out why. Anyone gets in my way, they're gonna regret it. Anyone.'

'Hey,' Bucky said, raising his hands and stepping to the side and then away. 'I've been trying to get out of the way for over a year. I got the legal bills to prove it. Fury was the one trying to keep me involved. I'm happy stepping back, stepping down.'

'You're Captain America,' Pierce put in. 'I thought you never backed down from a fight.'

'You must have me confused with someone else,' Bucky said, Pierce's words making Steve pop into his head. He wondered if that would ever stop, if he'd ever stop thinking about him. If Nick had really had a wife, he wondered if she would have the same trouble til she died.

After he rounded the corner, Natasha was there. She grabbed his arm and dragged him into a bakery, around the counter and into the kitchen at the back. The cashier protested.

'Hey, employees only,' a baker complained, before staring at Bucky's shield, slung to his back. The other three employees in the back stared too, too young to perhaps understand the real significance of the man in front of them. 'Oh, you're Captain America.' She looked old enough to have been a girl when Bucky died; she was perhaps his little sister's age, but still lucky enough to be kicking. Bucky's little sister had died of cervical cancer four years before he woke up, and it hurt to see an old woman with the same green eyes she had had so healthy to still be working.

'Captain America needs a place to hide,' Nat said before Bucky could say anything. 'Four men wearing SHIELD uniforms are about to come in and ask for us. We're going to go into this freezer. You're going to tell them we went out the back and then headed north.'

'Oh,' said the baker, shocked. 'OK, um. Right. I will; I will.'

'Thank you,' Bucky said as the woman opened the handle of the walk-in for them. 'You're saving our lives,' he promised, because if STRIKE were the men looking for them, she probably was.

'You're Captain America,' the woman said, as Nat turned the freezer light off and hunkered down, so they would be invisible from the window in the heavy, metal door. 'You saved everyone else's.'

She closed the door on them, and Nat slid cheap, useless lock into place. Bucky sat with his back against the door, too sharp of an angle from the window to be visible in the dark.

'Imagine the firefight we're avoiding,' she said softly, barely a whisper. 'Probably sirens and a helicopter. If you'd gone back to SHIELD with STRIKE, I'd think you'd be good as dead.'

'I could take down a helicopter with my shield and determination,' Bucky whispered back, unable to help himself. Nat huffed a small breath of air in place of a laugh. Bucky didn't reply, closing his eyes to listen past the hum of the freezer. Rumlow had indeed come bursting into the bakery. He and his team probably had their guns out, if the young cashier's scream was any indication.

'What's going on?' the baker demanded, sounding frightened.

'We're looking for Captain America and Black Widow,' Rumlow shouted. 'Where are they?'

'The man with the shield ran out the back,' one of the younger kitchen hands said, sounding desperate and terrified. Bucky imagined Rumlow and his team still had their guns out and trained on the innocents. His heart lurched and pounded. 'They went out the alley and turned left.'

'Rollins, Smith, go,' Rumlow ordered and the back door of the kitchen banged open with unnecessary force. 'You, go around; climb the fire escape and get a visual. I'll go up the other side of the block, cut them off if they try to use other alleys to get us off their tail.'

The front door bells chimed again, and they stayed still. Nat stared at him in the near-pitch black, and Bucky's heart began to slow as not a single bullet was fired in this shop. STRIKE was leaving. They'd believed the lie civilians had had to tell for him. He wondered if Nat had good enough ears to have heard past the thick door and the hum of the freezer.

'Fuck,' Bucky said softly. He pressed his face into his hands. It was cold in the freezer, obviously, but the chill set him on edge. He could hardly freeze to death here, but he’d frozen once before. His body screamed at him that he needed to get out. He had to calm down.

'Yeah,' Nat agreed. 'We'll stay here for as long as we can, until they ask us to leave.'

'If they don't find us, won't they think the baker was lying?' Bucky asked. 'Won't they come back and rough her up?'

'They're spies, not gangsters from the Prohibition Era,' Nat said. He resisted the urge to laugh hysterically. He had grown up in Prohibition; now, it was an era of time people referred to as tho it was so far in the past to be a parable. 'When they don't find us, they will know it is because I outsmarted them. They won't care how; they'll regroup at HQ and look for surveillance footage of us.'

'Won't they find footage of us here?' Bucky asked.

'Why do you think I led you this way out of the hospital?' she replied.

'Good,' he said, worried for these bakers. He reached up and slid the lock open, so they could open their freezer to kick them out at their leisure. 'You cold?' he asked. Nat shook her head, but he placed his shield at his side and then tucked his canvas coat across her shoulders. She didn't protest, just grabbed at the lapels and pulled it around her. After he'd scooted closer in the freezer to place it over her, he stayed beside her, Nat's shoulder touching his arm.

Without the jacket, his blood ran cooler with fear. I am not gonna die here, he reminded himself. It wasn’t cold enough to kill him; it wasn’t even cold enough for the serum to need to protect his extremities from frostbite. He was fine. He maybe needed to relax, but he was fine. He wanted to take a deep breath, but he was so afraid of breathing in cold air.

'Smells like you,' Nat whispered. ''S nice.'

'Thanks,' he said dimly. She leaned against him. He let her.

^^^

'I can’t believe we’re going to fucking Jersey,' he grumbled. 'I _hate_ New Jersey. Everyone hates Jersey.' Nat ignored him; maybe she had no thoughts about Jersey, or maybe in the spirit of all the impossibilities becoming realities about his ears, she even liked the place.

When he had last tried to leave DC, he had been arrested by SHIELD. He had darkly asked if SHIELD was intentionally trying to give the Mandarin the upper hand; with the knowledge that something dark had genuinely invaded the governmental organization, he wondered if that cynical accusation were true. He wondered if he’d be able to find out.

'Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?' Nat asked him instead. Bucky looked over at her, unimpressed. He realised she was teasing him. He didn't appreciate it. Not now. Not with Fury dead, and SHIELD infiltrated by something, and not when they were heading to fucking _New Jersey_ of all places. She hadn't even given him back his jacket yet, just pushed her arms thru the too-long sleeves, and then shoved those halfway up her forearms.

'Nazi Germany,' he said. Dum Dum had taught him how, and if he remembered correctly, they had actually been in occupied Poland when he had learned. The principle was the same. Bucky had stolen a lot in his life, but never a car outside of wartime. He'd stolen herbs and medicine for Steve; he'd stolen blankets and coats for his sisters. He had stolen a lipstick for Missus Rogers when she had been dying. She had smiled thinly at him and slid the bright colour over her lips. It had given her a way to try to feel beautiful even as her lungs consumed her and she coughed blood into her son's shirt. Steve miraculously hadn't caught consumption from her, but he'd nursed her in their home until the state took her away, into a sanatorium, where she must have died alone. That knowledge, rather than his mother's catching illness, had nearly killed him. 'Besides, we're borrowing it. I'm bringing it back with a full tank of petrol. Take your feet off the dash. Look, it was so clean.' He pointed at the dusky scuffs her shoes left behind. Nat ignored him.  

'You know, there's a likelihood this truck will get blown up because of us before you can get it back,' she pointed out and she pulled her shoes off the leather. He sighed. After she'd shown him the footage of the initial attack on Fury, he believed it. 'Alright, I have a question for you, which you do not have to answer.' He rolled his eyes.

'What do you want?' he sighed. Nat almost grinned. That made him regret letting her ask without even hearing the question.

'Have you kissed anyone since nineteen forty five?' she asked. 'Since, you know. Since he died.' He looked at her like she had three heads. She lifted a brow, challenging.

'Why?' he asked. She shrugged.

'I don't know,' she said. 'A lot of the things we've done together over the last few months could be considered dates. A lot of men would've kissed me by now; hell, a lot of men would have done a lot more than kiss.'

'You never called them dates,' he pointed out.

'I was trying not to scare you off,' she replied. 'Are you not gonna answer? I feel like if you don't answer, you're kind of answering, you know?'

'Are you trying to ask me if I'm a virgin?' Bucky demanded. 'Why does everyone always assume I'm a virgin?'

'I don't assume that. But you _are_ Captain America,' Nat pointed out. 'You're a literal paragon of virtue.'

'Well, fine, no, all right?' he snapped. 'Jesus, you don't need _practice_. What a dumb idea.'

'Everybody needs practice,' she said. He shook his head.

'Nah,' he disagreed. 'You find the right person; you learn together. Practice ain't got nothing to do with it. You love that person and it doesn't matter, even if they're a bad kisser. You just feel lucky to kiss them.' He sounded wistful. He supposed that was better than sounding heartbroken.

'What, so nobody special since you woke up?' she pressed. Bucky chuckled, wondering if she would ever stop trying to needle him about his love life. She used to nudge him about cute baristas and waiters, even people on the subway. He always told her to cut the shit.

'I know it's a crazy idea, but it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience,' he told her. 'You know, genetic experiment, frozen in ice, time traveller, ex-soldier with PTSD.' He listed them sarcastically, then trailed off.

'Well, that's alright,' Nat offered. 'You just make something up.'

'OK, first of all, I think there are very few people who don't know who I am,' Bucky said. 'Yeah, they don't know the real me, but they know the big facts; there isn't much I can make up without them knowing it's crap. And is that what you do? Go around, making shit up, never letting someone get to know you?' She looked out the windshield. He wondered if he had hit a nerve. 'It sounds fucking lonely,' he said, as tho the way he was going about things was any better. He was going around trying to tape his heart together and refusing to let anyone help. That was a pretty lonely road too.

'The truth is a matter of circumstances,' she said. 'It's not all things to all people, all of the time.' 1He snorted.

'The truth varies from different angles,' he agreed, 'but that doesn't mean random shit can be true. You have a truth. Nobody should be able to change your truth. You shouldn't let yourself change it for them. It's too tough a way to live.'  

'It's a good way not to die, though,' Nat said. He snorted again. 'It is. You're telling me you've never told a lie to stay alive?'

'We're not talking about _survival_ ,' he pointed out. 'Lie to get your ass out alive, sure. But we're talking about love.'

'Love is for children,' she told him. 'We're talking about sex. Sex can be—useful. It can be necessary.' He frowned at that. He didn't know if he really agreed.

'You're asking me whether I got somebody special,' he corrected. 'To me, that means love. How are you ever gonna get somebody special if you don't show them your truth?' he asked. She looked out the passenger side window, even further from his gaze as it flicked on and off the empty road. He had definitely hit a nerve with that one. 'You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who they really are.'

'Who do you want me to be?' she asked. She finally looked back. Her face was impassive, hard to read, back in her default armour.

'I want you to be you,' he said, and he meant it. 'I have this feeling the real you is someone I can trust.'

'Why?' she asked. He shrugged.

'I can't put my finger on it,' he admitted. 'Probably because I've seen so little of you. But you—You know what it is to have everything taken from you. It didn't happen the same way for us, and I'm pretty sure your way was worse, but you know.' She looked back at him and he met her eyes for a second. She considered him, the wheels in her head churning too fast for Bucky's liking. 'What?'

'You're saying we have shared life experience?' she echoed, teasing him again. He realised he did mean that. He realised Nat knew at least a little of what he went thru. At least a little, they fit.

'I don't know,' he said, evasively. He had liked it when she'd kissed him in the mall, hiding their faces from Rumlow; he could hardly deny that. She was smart. She was beautiful. She was confident and scary and strong. How could he not have liked it? She reached out to touch his hand, balanced on the console between them. 'Is that you?' he asked. She considered. He was glad she knew what he meant. He wanted to know if she meant it, touching his hand like that. Her skin was soft where it wasn't calloused and warm. It felt a little like coming home.

'I don't know,' she repeated. He turned his hand over and let her hold it anyway  It was nice, that's all. She felt small under his hand, almost delicate. That was nearly a joke; she was probably the least delicate person he had ever met. She was like marble. He didn't know what could break her, or at least what could make her admit she was broken. 'Does it matter?' she asked after a long, comfortable silence.

'Of course it matters,' he promised. 'You matter. Lots of things matter.'

'There's a chance you might be in the wrong business, Barnes,' she told him, 'if you think all this matters.'

'I'm not in this business,' he corrected. 'I'm just—I'm just stepping up to help out a friend.'

'Am I only a friend?' she asked. He glanced at her again. He swallowed nervously.

'I don't know,' he admitted. She smiled, just one corner going up. The amused, curious look suited her. He hoped he'd see it more.

^^^

The secret elevator took them to a sub-basement. Bucky wondered how long it had been there; if it were added when the SSR took over the base before Project: Rebirth, or if the renovations that occurred to turn the munitions store into a SHIELD office had seen the new level added. The sub-basement was dry and cool. The lights were dim and straight ahead was a computer station. Bucky stepped past empty, abandoned stenographers’ desks, moving to the computer monitors. Natasha followed him.

'This can't be the data-point,' she said, sighing. 'This technology is ancient.'

'I’m an older piece of tech than this,' Bucky replied, unwilling to accept they had hit a practical dead end. 'I can do a hell of a lot.'

'Yeah, people work a bit differently than computers,' Nat said. Bucky sighed. Had they really hit a dead end? Trying to track the signal past this decoy would mean giving SHIELD another opportunity to catch them at the station they used to track it. They’d nearly been caught at the mall, and they couldn’t risk something like that again.

'Look,' he said, pointing at a tiny USB port drive. It had little blue light along the bottom of it, glowing in the dim light of the sub-basement. The blue reminded him of HYDRA weapons, which was idiotic. HYDRA was long gone, and lots of tech glowed that blue nowadays. He had had a phone charger that had had the same light; the familiarity had given him nightmares. He'd gotten rid of it after a week, traded it in for one without lights. Tony’s arc reactor gave off trace amounts of the same gamma radiation that had made the Cube glow, for crying out loud. It meant nothing. It had to mean nothing.

Nat crossed to the computer ahead of him, sticking the USB port into the drive. He winced. He didn’t know if this computer had the capacity to start up the same nine-minute countdown they had had in the mall, but he felt tension in his body like it had.

'Initiate system?' the computerized voice asked. Natasha spelled out Y-E-S before Bucky could protest. He didn’t know why he was so afraid. He’d been at this base a long time and it was far from his home. It still felt like an invasion, somehow, for this secret computer to be here.

'Shall we play a game?' Nat asked, pitching her voice low and spooky. She straightened from the keytop and looked up at Bucky to explain.

'It’s from a movie—' she began and Bucky shook his head, hands in his pockets.

'Yeah, I know,' he said. 'I saw it.' He had hated it, to be honest. It had seemed like terror for terror's sake. He had enough of violence and sickening mind games in his real life; he hadn’t needed to see them lit up on screen.

'Barnes, James Buchanan,' the computer said suddenly, in a heavy accent that sent lightning down Bucky’s spine. 'Born nineteen eighteen. Romanov, Natalia Alianovna, born nineteen eighty four.' He grabbed Nat’s arm out of instinct, yanking her behind him as tho the familiar voice represented a physical danger.

'Ow, what the shit?' Nat demanded. She yanked herself out of his grip. 'It’s a goddamn recording, Buck.'

'I am not a recording, Fräulein,' the computer told her. 'I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in nineteen forty five, but I am.'

Arnim Zola’s rat fucking face lit up in green and white on the main monitor, and Bucky’s heart pounded in his chest. He’d looked it up when he’d had those months between the Battle of New York and his forced relocation from Stark Tower; Arnim Zola had died alone in a Swiss hospice of stomach cancer in the seventies. Stomach cancer was apparently a horrible way to go, and Bucky remembered being glad to know the bastard had died vomiting blood and wasting away.

'Do you know this thing?' Nat asked him. Bucky nodded, reaching his hand out to try to keep Nat behind him. He hadn’t felt this scared since he fell out of the helicarrier. He hadn’t even been this scared when the quinjet was crashing in Midtown.

'Arnim Zola,' he said. 'The Red Skull’s answer to Doctor Erskine’s refusal to provide them my serum. Erskine fled to America and Zola started trying to do his work. He's the one who killed dozens of men trying to recreate my serum before it came close to working on Steve. He tortured prisoners of war and supervised the forced labor of thousands of others. He's been dead for years.'

'Look around you, Captain,' Zola said brightly. The sub-basement’s lighting system was properly activated then, lighting up. Bucky swept his eyes over hundreds of computer banks, all whirling their tapes and blinking their dim, old lights. 'I have never been more alive. Science could not save my body in the seventies; you are right. My mind, however: that was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain.'

'Nat,' Bucky said, 'how did he get here? He should have stood trial in Nuremberg with all the other war criminals. He died in a hospice in Switzerland; why is he _here_?' He turned from the computer bank, the monitor, and the old camera watching them. Nat shook her head.

'I was invited,' Zola chirped.

'Nat, can that be true?' he demanded. 'Who the fuck invited this son of a bitch to my country?'

'There was a project called Operation Paperclip after World War II,' Nat offered. He realised she had probably only heard of Zola as an auxiliary detail when he'd told her about Steve; it was unfair to demand answers from her just because he was too scared to think. 'SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic values.'

'Correction: I am Swiss,' Zola told her. 'They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own.'

'It takes a brave man to secretly infiltrate a thing like SHIELD,' Bucky said, because this had been a SHIELD base and judging by his limited ability to place technology, it had been well into the eighties. If Zola died in the seventies, he had to have been here when SHIELD was still in the building. If he were invited here, it was by SHIELD, by the remnants of the SSR, by the people Bucky had trusted and died to protect. 'You were always a fucking coward. Cowards don’t run terrorist groups. Besides, HYDRA died with the Red Skull. I stopped them.'

'You should know better than anyone,' Zola told him. 'If you cut off one head, two shall take its place.'

'The Red Skull wasn’t just another head,' Bucky snapped. 'He represented the backbone, the _heart_ of HYDRA. Without him, what did all your nameless soldiers have to believe in? What convinced kids to sign up to die?'

'The same thing I believed in,' Zola said simply. 'HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly.'

'Humanity will never give up its freedom,' Bucky cut in. 'Freedom is all a lot of people have. People give up everything else to get it.'

'Humanity has already given it up,' Zola corrected. 'After the war, SHIELD was founded and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew, a beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed.'

The side monitors flicked thru images Bucky could barely recognize: the Cuban missile crisis, the flag of Camp David, an assassinated president, an ambassador’s wife murdered in another country’s embassy. Wars started and people removed from positions of power, people killed for being dedicated to peace, real peace. Bucky felt sick. His stomach roiled, like he was on a sinking ship too far from land for even him to swim to safety. He was genuinely nauseated and he pressed a fist against his mouth.

'That’s impossible,' Nat said. 'SHIELD would have stopped you.' After everything that had happened, she still sounded sure. She sounded positive that someone would have stopped them. Bucky hoped someone had at least tried.

'Accidents will happen,' Zola told her. One of the monitors showed a photo of a burnt out car wreck. The newspaper microfiche that appeared below it claimed Howard and Maria Stark had been inside. Bucky regretted hoping someone had stepped up; trying to stop HYDRA had killed Howard, killed his beautiful, clever wife, had left Tony an orphan far earlier than he had deserved to be.

'HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security,' bragged Zola. 'Director Fury himself approved Project: Insight. The Project is nearly complete and it will have the ability to wipe hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of threats to HYDRA. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise.'

'Turn it off,' Bucky ordered Natasha. She didn’t move, too shocked to hear him. She was pale. Her hands were shaking. Whatever marble she was made of was cracking; Bucky could see it.

'We won, Captain,' Zola told him. 'Your death amounts to the same as your life: a zero sum.'

'Fuck, Nat, turn it off!' he practically begged, yelling, turning away from the computer bank. 'I can’t—I can’t hear it.'

'Project Insight requires insight,' Zola went on, without them. 'So I wrote an algorithm.'

'What kind of algorithm?' Nat asked the computer. Her hand touched Bucky’s arm, stopping him from retreating. 'What does it do?' They needed this information; Bucky couldn’t retreat, no matter how much he wanted to. He couldn’t stop. He had to barrel on ahead. He had to know. He grabbed Nat’s hand, sliding his wrist thru her loose, gentle grip. She held it, trying to tether him, assure him.

'Everything HYDRA needs to know who might stand against us is becoming more and more available,' Zola explained. 'Technology is a wonderful source of information, and humanity has let it become more and more essential to their lives. Cutting out resistance has never been so easy and now HYDRA can do it from the sky.'  

'What are your targets?' Natasha asked.

'Many,' Zola told her. 'The good Captain, a TV anchor in Cairo, the Undersecretary of Defence, a high school valedictorian in Iowa city. Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who is a threat to HYDRA. Now, or in the future.'

'You can’t know the future,' Bucky pointed out. Zola chuckled, electronic and spine-chilling.

'There we will have to disagree,' Zola said simply.

'You’re not going to win,' Bucky shouted. His nausea had turned on a dime into anger; he felt sure of what he said, surer than he’d been of nearly anything in his life. He turned back to the computer, ripping his hand from Nat and moving forward, on the offence. 'You underestimate us. You underestimate humanity, brotherhood, friendship, love, empathy. People will stand up and someone will stop you. I am going to try,' he promised, furious and standing too close to Zola’s rat face, 'and I am going to succeed, even if it fucking kills me.'

'No, Captain,' Zola replied calmly. 'Your death, your real death, is upon us. You will be too dead to stop me, to even warn the rest of mankind. By this time tomorrow, it will be too late.'

A grinding noise started behind them, and Bucky whipped around, shield at the ready. The elevator was being locked behind blast doors, closing slowly on rusty tracks. He heaved, trying to block the gap with his shield, trying to jam it open enough for him to be able to push it back open and get them out. He knew that would be the only way out; it would be the only chance to get Nat out alive.

The doors closed too quickly; his shield rebounded and he caught it easily. 'Shit,' he whispered.

'Buck, I got a bogey,' Natasha reported. 'Short-range ballistic. Thirty seconds, tops.'

'Who fired it?' Bucky demanded, searching the subbasement for somewhere, anywhere, that they could hide and potentially survive the building crashing down.

'SHIELD,' Nat whispered, staring at her phone, at the programme tracking the missile barrelling towards them. Bucky saw their salvation: a flood cellar below a grate in the floor.

'I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain,' Zola said. Bucky snatched the USB drive out of the port. 'We are the same now, you and I. We are both out of time.'

Bucky grabbed Nat with his shield arm, tearing the grate off of the cellar. He practically tossed her into the small hole, hoping the debris would not fall too heavily on his back and crush her to death underneath him. He hopped in as the building shook and a deafening boom rang. Lights went out and they were in darkness.

Hunks of cement and steel rained down on them as Bucky forced his shield over his head, across his shoulders, covering Nat where she curled in the corner below him. He braced his shield with his arm, his other braced against the wall. Heavy cement crashed onto him from above and his knee buckled under the weight, forcing him lower and kneeling over Nat. In the half-second before they were buried in the pitch black, he saw Nat had bashed her head when he had pushed her into the cellar; red blood matted down her hair above her ear.

' _Fuck_ ,' he gasped as the debris began to settle. The weight was enormous and it took absolutely all of him to hold it off of his friend. 'Holy shit,' he panted. Despite his blaspheme, the words of the _Our Father_ leapt into his head, begging. Ever since he’d started as a soldier in North Africa, Europe, Russia, each atrocity he’d seen had shaken his faith more and more, but in this moment, he prayed. He prayed that God would forgive him, if only to deliver him long enough to let him stop HYDRA again, to save those millions, because he might be the only one who could. He squeezed his eyes shut and prayed, his mind racing for a way to get them out of this ruin before STRIKE dug thru it for their bodies.

'Nat, get closer to me,' he whispered, his voice strained. 'I have to get us out of here and the rubble will crush you when I move; you gotta stay under me.'

She didn’t reply. As his eyes adjusted to seeing without light, he saw her eyes were closed and she was as near to prone as she could get in the tiny, safe space under his shield and body. He was alone. He had to get them both out of here and he didn’t have Natasha’s strength to bolster him.

'I can do this,' he told himself, before whispering a _Hail Mary_ for good measure. 'Now and at the hour of our death. Please don’t let this be the hour of my death,' he added, really praying like he hadn’t in years. 'Amen.' He had to get them out of here; he had to get Natasha out and alive from this bombed-out ruin. He had to. He was Captain America.

He couldn’t fail again.

^^^

'I'm so sorry,' Nat said quietly as they sat under an outcropping of rock in some forest in Pennsylvania. She'd been unconscious after the building exploded and collapsed around them; he'd carried her and ran as far as he possibly could, much further than he imagined STRIKE Team Alpha would realize he could run. Night had fallen while he ran and they sat together in the dark, pressed shoulder to shoulder against the rock. Bucky had hauled some random, broken trees and leaned them over the outcropping. Their tiny fire was shielded from view at least, but the smoke escaped thru the openings of the trees protecting them. It wasn't ideal. It was enough.

'What are you sorry for?' he asked. He touched the gash on his lower back from a piece of rebar that had dug into him when he’d dug them out. It had long since scabbed over and he could feel the bumps of scar tissue beginning. He figured they'd fade by the time they’d stopped the helicarriers. They didn’t have much time.

'I don't know,' she replied. 'All of it. I mean, I didn't listen to you about SHIELD and not only were you right about them, you were _really_ right about them.' She sounded like she was crying and trying to hide it. He didn't look over; he gave her that privacy. He did lift his arm and pull her small shoulders under it; he tried to give her that comfort at least. 'I thought—I don't even know what I thought.'

'It's OK,' he told her. 'It's gonna be OK. We'll figure it out.'

'How could any of this be OK?' she asked, definitely crying now. 'Nick's dead. The Winter Soldier is after us; STRIKE is after us. SHIELD is nothing I thought it was. I'm nothing I thought I was.'

'Hey, hey, hey,' he said, cutting her off. He shifted, meeting her eyes. 'Come on. You're at least one thing you thought. You're my friend. I've got you, OK, and I got you until you find your feet again.' She laughed softly, using her filthy sleeve to wipe under her eye. There was just enough moisture from her tears to leave a streak of clean skin behind along her cheekbone, sharp against the chalky dust of the camp wreckage. SHIELD had been infiltrated from the very beginning, from its first base, even. Figured. How could someone start anything in Jersey and expect it not to go to shit?

'What if I never find something?' she asked softly. She was really asking something different, and his eyes flicked to her lips for the barest of seconds.

'I'll get you,' he promised. 'I'll catch you.' Nat gave him a moment, no doubt trying to let him stop her if she was crossing a line. He didn't move away. He didn't move at all. She touched the side of his neck, her hand cool and soft, her gun callouses the only thing about the touch that wasn't so, so gentle. She leaned up almost all the way, her breath against his mouth. He kissed her, for real this time.

She breathed in sharply and her grip shifted against his neck. He reached up too, cupping her cheek and letting her guide the kiss. She swiped her tongue along the seam of his mouth and he granted her access, a noise escaping his throat. He had meant it when he said that the right person could be a terrible kisser and still make his head swim, but even if she'd been completely the wrong one, she would have turned his knees weak, kissing like that. She moved closer, and he put his other hand on her waist, feeling the strong, certain muscle there, hard and sure and honed to kill and steal and break. He was a sicker man than he thought, because the idea made him moan again, the hand on her cheek moving to tangle in her straightened hair.

Natasha fisted one hand in his shirt and Bucky’s own hand slid to her back, pulling her against him. She was warm. The warmth drew into him, filling and charging his bones. His hand lay in the middle of her back, spanning the slightest part of her athletic frame easily. It felt right; it felt welcome. He didn’t want to let go.

She shifted against him, kissing his jaw. One of her hands reached for his belt and he stopped her, grabbing her wrist. She pulled away, eyes searching him.

'Sorry,' he said. He kissed her again, briefly, to make sure his hesitation didn't make her feel unwanted. He was damn sure he wanted. 'I just—I've never—'

'I thought you said you weren't a virgin,' she said, voice husky and almost amused. She was almost teasing him. He kissed her once more, because when she sounded amused like that, he found it so endearing.

'I'm not,' he agreed. 'I've just—never been with a woman.' She raised a brow at that and he shrugged sadly. 'I had the love of my life before,' he explained. 'I never wanted anything else. What woulda been the point of finding it?'

'What's the point here?' she asked. He considered.

'Comfort,' he said. 'Maybe to lay the brickwork of something special. But even if I knew what the hell I'd be doing—'

'I know what I'm doing,' she told him. 'You could sit back and enjoy the ride, and I guarantee you would enjoy it.' He groaned at the image that put in his head.

'I don't doubt it,' he promised. His voice was rough and Nat's eyes had dilated within an inch of their life. 'But why would I want our first time together to be here, like this? Under these circumstances?' She seemed surprised by that. 'For God's sakes, Nat, I mean, you're _crying_ ,' he pointed out. He swiped a thumb across her cheek, taking the last few tears away.

'I've had worse,' she told him, almost stubbornly.

'You deserve better,' he said, and he kissed her again. She let him lead this time, and he took it slowly. He held her close and gentle and he tried to show her how much better she fucking deserved.

^^^

They slept fully dressed that night, but pressed against each other. Nat let him spoon up behind her, holding her close. She used his thick arm as a pillow. He'd fallen asleep to the sound of her breathing and the soft crackle of their tiny fire burning out. The smoky air had felt secret and intimate. He'd fallen asleep with his lips still tasting of her.

When he woke up, the taste was gone and so was Nat. Despite the twigs and pebbles digging into him, he had slept more soundly than he had in a long time. He hadn’t even dreamed, apparently hadn’t stirred when Natasha left him. Her impractical runners were still in the improvised lean-to, so he figured she really hadn't gone far. She'd even left her socks. He turned awkwardly in the small space and poked his head out in time to see Nat coming back out of the heavy woods around them. 'Hey,' he called softly. She smiled at him, still filthy from the debris of his training camp.

'Hey,' she replied. 'I got a fish.' She held the fish in her hand up and she did indeed have one. Bucky actually hated the taste of fish, but he loved unexpected rations and he'd become quite taken with accepting free food from Nat. He could hardly complain. He glanced inside the lean-to; they had enough kindling and wood to cook a little trout. He didn't need to find anything and she could crawl back into their hidden shelter to cook up their food.

'How?' he asked. Her pant legs were rolled up to her knees, exposing her creamy skin and the firm curve of her muscle. He wanted to run his hand up her calf and feel the promise of strength there. She smiled coyly.

'Magic,' she said, heavy with sarcasm. 'I grabbed it. It's not hard.'

'It is hard to grab a fish with your bare hands,' he corrected. 'Thanks for breakfast.'

'Hey, consider it a first date,' she told him with a flirty grin. 'Next time, you provide the food.' He laughed quietly, hushed in the silence of the woods. Birds chirped and squirrels chittered. Footsteps or rotors did not approach; for now at least, they were safe. 'Start the fire. I'm gonna gut this out here.' She pulled a knife from the back of her belt and set about gutting the trout. Bucky was glad she had offered to do it; he hated the taste of fish and he hated the idea of gutting it even more.

They cooked it in silence, and she took a third and gave him the rest.

'Half and half is fair,' he told her, trying to pass her back some of the fish. She levelled him a look and his hands retreated before she opened her mouth to explain.

'I've read your files,' she said. 'I know how fast your metabolism burns. You must feel like you haven't eaten in a week. Me, I'm just hungry.' He couldn't deny he was ravenous. He felt it was unfair; his biology shouldn't be her concern. He also didn't think he could argue with Nat.

'I'm sorry about Fury,' he said instead, because he was but he hadn't had a chance to say it yet.

'I'm sorry you died for nothing,' she replied. He shrugged.

'Yeah, that really—that really hurt,' he admitted. 'I stopped a lot of civilian deaths, crashing, but I thought I'd given my life for a lot more. I thought we'd won a war, not a battle.'

'You don't sound that upset,' Nat accused. Bucky laughed, picking a bone out of the fish and tossing it into the little pile between them.

'At least now we know who we're fighting,' he pointed out. 'Now, I’m sure that stopping them is the right thing. There is no room for doubt.'

'I thought—' She stopped.

'You thought?' he prompted. Nat shook her head.

'I thought by joining SHIELD, I was going straight,' she said. She kept her eyes on the fish she held in her hand, simple and clean against her dirty skin. Bucky chewed his own as he listened, the two-thirds of a trout not coming close to stopping the hunger pangs in his stomach. He refused to resent the serum for that. 'I guess I just traded the KGB for HYDRA. I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but apparently I can't tell the difference anymore.'

'There's a chance you might be in the wrong business,' he told her, echoing her own words. She gave a tired, sad smile. 'Only good men are haunted by their mistakes,' he added. Steve had said that once, after Bucky had seen how young some of the HYDRA soldiers they'd killed were. They had been kids, just kids. Steve had helped him bury them properly, had tied little crosses out of branches and the kids' own shoelaces. Steve had promised that HYDRA wouldn't be haunted by deaths like this, and if Bucky wanted to stop it, he had to keep going. 'You're gonna have to live with your mistakes, and just hope you make better ones in the future.'

'I owe you,' Nat said seriously, and it took him a moment to understand she meant for saving her life as her own people tried to shoot them down.

'Nah, don't worry about it,' he replied. Life wasn’t owed; it was something that had to be dutifully protected. Besides that, Nat was his friend. Nat might be something more to him. He had had to protect her and she didn’t owe him anything for it.

'If it were the other way around,' she began after a long silence, 'if it were down to me to save your life—and you be honest with me—would you trust me to do it?'

'I would,' he said, easy and honest. He meant it; Nat had been his friend for months. She had been the first and only person he had ever talked about Steve with. He hadn't even talked about Steve when he went to the VA group meetings. He listened most of the time, and when Sam made him talk, he talked about the other nightmares he had, about the things he had done that haunted him, not the things he'd failed to do. He didn't talk about failing Steve; he talked about killing and death and the screech of artillery falling on towns and villages, about the air raid sirens jolting him awake at night and about yelling at officers who didn't reward or respect the Navajo code talkers who passed the best intel up and down dangerous fronts. He talked about the Nazi officers who ramped up mass executions in concentration camps if the Commandos were spotted by sentries. He talked about breaking locks on gas chambers and being too late to have saved anyone, about burying bodies that already looked like skeletons. He had talked about a lot of things, but not his broken heart.

He hadn’t thought letting someone cradle the pieces would help.

^^^

Sam had made a breakfast with what looked like the entirety of his fridge. Bucky worried at how much of it he would actually need to eat. He wondered if Nat had explained how much food a supersoldier required or if Sam were this generous with all the assholes who came to his home demanding safe haven. He felt his face turn red as he came into the kitchen, smelling amazing smells, at the enormous growl his stomach let out.

'Siddown,' Sam ordered, pointing at the table with the spatula in his hand. He had turned off the stove and was scooping the last of the bacon he had cooked onto a plate. 'You know, I saw you, like, four days ago and I swear you’ve lost weight.'

'I burn fast,' Bucky said, taking the ordered seat. Natasha appeared in the doorway, freshly showered and pink-cheeked from the steam. She was gorgeous and clean-skinned, and her hair hadn’t dried, falling in wet ringlets. He wanted to kiss her again, looking like that, but it wasn’t the time or the place. It seemed like Bucky lost a lot of love to bad timing and HYDRA. 'I’ve been on the run. No time to empty out an IHOP.' Nat smiled at him, amused by that.

'No, I guess not,' Sam agreed. He placed the plate in front of Bucky and told him to start eating. Sam left him in the kitchen while he wandered into his living room. Bucky finished loading his plate as Nat said down too.

'God, this is amazing,' she said before she’d even taken a bite, heaping her own plate high. Bucky hummed his agreement as he tucked in, trying very hard not to desperately chow down on what felt like the first thing he’d eaten a fortnight, even if it had barely been two days. As he chewed the first bite of hot, delicious scrambled eggs and too much hot sauce, a brown folder hit the table beside him. Sam sat casually at the head of the table, pulling what was left of the toast pile towards him.

'What is this?' Bucky asked. He flicked it open, scanning the information inside. He frowned.

'Call it a resume,' Sam told him. Bucky shook his head. Nat leaned over and pulled a glossy photograph from his hand.

'Sam, you got out for a reason,' he said. 'You got out for a good reason,' he added, as tho Sam needed that assurance somehow.

’Is this Bakhmala?’ Natasha interrupted, turning the photo she had stolen off Bucky for Sam to see. 'The Khalid Khandil mission: that was you.' Bucky had never heard of the mission, but Natasha sounded impressed. That made him eye the information in the folder a little closer, trying to evaluate what a pilot could do to make Nat sound like that. 'You didn't say he was a para-rescue,' she accused.

'I didn’t even say he was military,' Bucky corrected. 'He got out and I respect that. I told you he was someone we could trust.' He paused in his evaluation, shoving more food into his mouth. Nat kicked his shin under the table and he understood what she wanted easily. He tore pages from their staple as he read them, passing them to her. Sam’s resume, of sorts, was in fact impressive. Bucky hadn’t understood from the VA meetings how much Sam had done or how much he had seen.

'Is this Riley?' he asked, finding the only photo with worn edges. Sam stood beaming at the camera and squinting into the sun, the horizon slightly off-tilt by whoever had taken the photo. He had an arm tossed over the shoulders of the man next to him, a white man who Bucky imagined from his smile was just as kind as Sam.

'Yeah,' Sam agreed. Bucky nodded, memorizing every detail of the photo. It seemed important, somehow, that Sam had lost a best friend too. Bucky had very few photos of Steve, fewer than a handful, and he was jealous that the one Sam had of his best friend was all in colour and high resolution, clear as fucking glass made after the Depression. He bet Sam had dozens or hundreds of photographs of Riley, all as good or better than this one. Sam had worn these edges soft. Bucky had worn soft the photograph taken of the Howling Commandos when he had finally, finally won approval to have a black man, a Japanese-American and a Jewish medic on his team. Steve looked proud in that photo, next to Bucky. He looked proud of Bucky and Bucky hoped his failure to keep Steve safe hadn’t changed that as he fell to his death.

'I heard they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the RPGs,' Natasha said. The RPGs had taken Riley down; choppers or no, they’d killed a serviceman. 'What did you use, a stealth chute?'

'No,' Sam said, sliding the second folder he held towards Bucky. 'We used these.'

'I thought you said you're a pilot,' Bucky said, eyeing the technology on the papers. He was afraid of flying at the best of times; he literally could not imagine strapping on the equipment Sam had used, as one of maybe a dozen people who had ever had the clearance to do so.

'I never said a pilot,' Sam said, almost smug. Bucky shook his head, passing the file to Nat. It seemed foolhardy. It seemed unfair. It seemed cruel, even, to ask Sam to fight with them when he’d been so broken by the loss of his friend that he had left the Air Force all together.

'I can't ask you to do this, Sam,' Bucky told him. 'It’s gonna be dangerous, and HYDRA is worse than anything I think you’ve faced.'

'You’re not asking,' Sam replied around a mouthful of his own breakfast. 'I’m offering.' He swallowed and shot Bucky a small grin. 'Dude, Captain America needs my help. There's no better reason to get back in.'

'What’s our play, Buck?' Natasha asked. Bucky sighed, considering.

'We need to get Sam his equipment,' he allowed, hating himself a little for letting it happen. If something killed Sam, it would be on him. He could veto, right now, say that Nat and he could do it alone, go it alone, but there were three helicarriers and Bucky didn’t know if they actually could. He hoped the reward could be worth the price he was laying on the red.

'The last one is at Fort Meade, behind three guarded gates and a twelve-inch steel wall,' Sam admitted. Bucky looked at Natasha, who shrugged. He felt a corner of his mouth rise at that.

'Fine, good,' he said. 'We’ll get it.'

'The Soldier is still after us,' Natasha pointed out. Bucky nodded.

'I don’t think that’s a variable we can control,' he said. 'What we can do is stop the helicarriers. We have just over—' He twisted, checking the clock on Sam’s stove. '—just over twenty three hours to do it. I imagine SHIELD HQ has security and if it's crawling with HYDRA, we’ll have a hell of a time getting in.' He looked to Nat and she tilted her head, considering.

'It’s doable,' Nat said, hedging her words. 'Ideally, we could kidnap Jasper Sitwell.'

'Why would we kidnap Jasper Sitwell?' Bucky asked. 'Who is Jasper Sitwell?'

'He’s a SHIELD officer who was rather out of place on the Lemurian Star,' Nat said. 'That’s where I got the drive, and it has to be where the Insight satellites were launched from. If he’s HYDRA, which is the only thing that makes sense, his biometric passes will still be active in a way mine must not be. We could use him to bypass DNA scans.'

'I don’t like it,' Bucky admitted. 'It’s not ideal. Where are the helicarriers kept? How will they take off?'

'The ceiling of their storage bay will open; they’ll take off straight up,' she said. 'I’ve seen them. They’re huge.'

'What’s the biggest weak spot of the bays?' Bucky asked.

'Well, the truck entrance, but you have to get into the building first. Probably the roof,' she said. 'You should be strong enough to pry a service port open, if you could really peel open a tank like they said you can. We could drop down into the carriers, get inside from there. We might be able to disable launch protocols, or at the very least put some grenades in the targeting computers.' Last time Bucky had dropped a team of three down onto an enemy transport, he’d lost a good man. He didn’t like that either, but he liked it better than introducing a HYDRA agent to the scheme and banking on his cooperation. Bucky had a lot banking on himself already, but he was more comfortable relying on his physical strength than gleaning cooperation from an enemy operative.

'OK,' he said. 'Sam, can I send a text from your phone? We ditched ours ages ago.' Sam nodded, shifting in his seat to access his jeans' pocket. He unlocked and then slid a smartphone across the table. Bucky picked it up gingerly, staring at the unfamiliar user interface for a moment. He realized all phone brands were different, of course, but he couldn’t help but feel lost without the red envelope that led his StarkPhone to his texts.

'The green speech bubble,' Natasha prompted. He thanked her absently, tapping the icon and opening a new thread.

'Who are you texting?' Sam asked.

'Iron Man,' Bucky replied. 'We’ll need all the help we can get.'

^^^

The Winter Soldier caught the shield on its rebounding path, spinning and arching a leg as he heaved it back at Bucky, too hard and fast for Bucky to catch it without the vibranium slicing his hand to ribbons. Bucky jerked back, dodging, just in time. The shield slammed into a panel van, burying nearly halfway into the metal. He tried to yank it out but it wouldn’t fucking budge. He ducked as a glinting knife came down on him. He threw the Soldier into the panel van, taking the half-second of recovery to move away from the cars, to give himself more room to maneuver.

The Soldier flipped the knife in the air, changing his grip as smoothly as rivers ran. Bucky tried to maintain distance, tried to evaluate any weaknesses but the Soldier attacked in earnest and Bucky blocked blows and stabs, losing ground as he struggled to get the upper hand. The Soldier was nimble and strong; Bucky’s own strength was hindered by his bulk and his bigger targets.

Bucky grappled the metal arm, unable to dig into tendons or crush bones to get the hand to drop the knife. The Winter Soldier tried to yank out of his grasp, but Bucky held fast, his grip denting plates and no doubt hindering servomotors. His blond hair fell in a curtain as he ducked, catching the sunlight, and for a second, Bucky swore he recognized the Soldier.

He twisted, forcing the metal arm straight across his back as he reached up with his other hand. He grabbed desperately, getting purchase on the thick muzzle the Soldier wore, gripping his jaw. Bucky bent and threw, tossing the man over his own back and scrambling away as he straightened. His shield was stuck; he didn’t have any guns and hadn’t owned any the Army hadn’t given him in his life. He wished now he had a weapon. The mask came off in his hand and he dropped it. It was useless; it didn’t matter.

The Soldier rolled, absorbing what should have been an impact that would stun him for a moment, an impact which would have broken a normal man. His knife had been dropped on impact, at least, Bucky noted, and the Soldier rolled right to his feet. His metal fingers jerked awkwardly, disabled by Bucky’s handprinted dent across the gleaming forearm. His human hand, tucked in a black glove, began unbuckling a holster at his thigh as he turned.

Bucky’s breath stopped. His heart stuttered and his bones froze. His hands did not shake.

This was impossible. What he was seeing was not possible. The blue eyes had unnerved him that first night on the roof; the long, shaggy blond hair had seemed eerie, but this? This was not possible. It was simply _not possible_ , and if it were true, it represented a bigger failure on Bucky’s part than anything that had ever happened and would ever happen to him. This had to be wrong; it had to be a trick of the light or of his memory, but it wasn’t. The terrible, horrendous impossibility stood there as clear as it was day.  

Steve’s face stared back at him, red blood on his cheek from a scrape when he rolled. Bucky knew it would heal in minutes. Steve stood there, all of five eight and impossible in his strength. It was impossible that he was alive. This couldn’t be Steve; it had to be a trick; it had to be something. For a moment, Bucky prayed Loki was behind this somehow, but the god was locked away in Asgard for his crimes. What was in front of him had to be reality.

The gun slipped from the holster.

'Steve?' Bucky called. Steve blinked at him, hesitating in raising his gun. Something in his blank face flickered for a moment before being pushed down. The gun raised. Bucky started to lift his arms to cover his head, to duck uselessly, but Sam swooped down like a fucking superhero and kicked. Steve went flying. Bucky ran to his shield; his panic gave him the strength to tear it from its moorings. He rounded the panel van, running, and stumbled to a stop when STRIKE Team Alpha had him surrounded, like he was an amateur, running into an ambush. He searched past the van, but Steve was gone, like he’d evaporated.

It couldn’t have been Steve, but it was. Rotors chopped the air, tossing Bucky’s short hair as he searched for the Soldier, but he was gone. He looked up at the helicopter, thinking of Natasha’s prediction about their firefight. It was a news chopper, not one of SHIELD’s; the station logo was painted on the bottom of the cockpit.

'On the ground!' Rollins shouted at him. Two STRIKE agents knelt, aimed on him, fingers on triggers and ready to blow him away. 'Get on your knees; hands behind your head!'

'Drop the shield, Captain,' Rumlow ordered. With a half-dozen assault weapons on him, Bucky complied. He felt frozen. He felt numb. He knelt, broken glass cutting into his jeans. He barely felt it. He raised his hands, holding the back of his skull as if he could steady his racing thoughts in their loop.

It couldn’t have been Steve, but it was. It had been.

The cold muzzle of a gun touched the nape of his neck, death pressing into the soft, delicate skin there. Bucky closed his eyes.

'Not here,' Rumlow said, his hand reaching out to touch the barrel of the assault weapon. ' _Not_ here,' he repeated. Bucky realised the news chopper was still hovering, filming his arrest and his abandoned shield for the whole world to see. Whether HYDRA claimed humanity had already given up or not, they couldn’t execute Captain America on national television and expect the world not to explode around them. HYDRA's actions still had consequences, even if Bucky only had twenty more hours to keep that fact true.

Magnetic cuffs encircled his wrists, locking his arms in front of him. Bucky opened his eyes, staring at Rumlow’s boots as the cuffs turned on and attached to each other. He tested them weakly, too numb to try for real, and they didn’t budge, not an inch. Rollins tangled a hand in Bucky’s canvas jacket, still dusty from the explosion at his training camp. He was hauled to his feet.

'You’re lucky the world was watching,' Rumlow told him as he took Bucky’s other arm. Civilians had stopped fleeing chaos and instead stared at him as he was lead to a SHIELD wagon. They had cell phones out, videotaping the carnage and Captain America taken into custody. 'When we get back to base, there won’t be a helicopter waiting. Just a bullet with your skull etched into it.' Rumlow said it like a promise, but Bucky wasn’t frightened of him. He was frightened of all the things he imagined someone would have to do to Steve to get him to fire at Bucky, to get him to try to kill Bucky, to get him so stripped and bare that he would fire an assault weapon into a crowd in hopes of hitting Bucky even once.

The doors to the wagon were opened, and Bucky saw Sam and Natasha already cuffed—in police-issue steel—sitting with two masked agents sitting in the very back to prevent any attempt at escape. Bucky let STRIKE load him in too, sitting down next to Sam and staring at the ground, at the riveted metal.

'Bucky?' Sam said, an aborted movement of his hands like he wanted to check Bucky for wounds. There weren’t any, not physical ones. There were drops of blood on the riveted floor; Bucky looked up and saw Natasha’s face, pale, her head leaned against the wall of the wagon. Her shoulder was leaking blood. She’d been shot. He wondered if Steve had shot her. 'You look like you’ve seen a ghost.' In another life, that might have made Bucky laugh. As the wagon lurched and began driving, he had nothing alive enough inside him to even try to laugh.

'He looked right at me and he didn't even know me,' Bucky said, dimly, almost unaware he was talking. He felt so cold. He hadn’t felt this cold in what seemed like forever. He felt like he was dying, collapsing inside himself.  He didn’t understand.

'Who?' Sam pressed.

'Steve,' Bucky said. Natasha frowned. 'Steve Rogers. He was a member of the Commandos, and he was my best friend.'

'How’s that even possible?' Sam asked. 'He died like seventy years ago.'

'Zola,' Bucky said, because that was the only way it was possible. The computer’s voice leapt into his head and Bucky’s hands started to shake then. He clenched his fingers into fists. 'The whole of the one-oh-seventh was captured in forty three, with Steve, the only medic who survived the ambush. Zola experimented on him, tried to recreate my serum. He must have survived the fall,' Bucky realised. 'They must have found him.'

'None of that's your fault, Bucky,' Natasha told him. Bucky shook his head; that couldn’t be true.

'He was—I always looked out for him,' Bucky said. 'I dragged him outta so many fights, outta tight spots in the war. He must have thought I would come for him, that I’d find him. I always found him. I was all he had. Even when we had nothing, we had each other and I didn’t come for him.' Sam looked away from Bucky, at Natasha. His questioning gaze turned concerned in a beat.

'We need to get a doctor here,' Sam told the guards. 'We don't put pressure on that wound she's gonna bleed out here in the truck.' Bucky didn’t point out that news choppers and civilians with StarkPhones were the only reason they hadn’t been executed right in the street. HYDRA didn’t care if Nat bled out in the wagon; it would save them a bullet, that was all.

One of the guards snapped a Tazer club out of her belt; Bucky considered trying to block the blow probably headed for Sam. To his shock, before he could move, one guard tazed the other, slamming the helmeted head hard enough into the wagon’s side to knock the man out. Black gloved hands peeled at the helmet, yanking it off. Maria Hill’s face popped out of the mirrored visor, her hair plastered to her face by sweat and the pressure of an ill-fitting uniform.

Maria groaned, tossing the helmet down. 'That thing was squeezing my brain,' she said, before eyeing Sam. Sam eyed her right back. 'Who’s this guy?'

^^^

'J, please,' Tony begged. 'How long till Mark XLIII is go?'

'Despite our efforts, it will be another four hours,' JARVIS said regretfully. 'We are skipping, as you said, the bells and whistles, but the alloy and assembly take time. Manufacturing an external arc reactor is also a delay,' he said, and if J were human, Tony would have taken those words like a knife to the gut. When he had had a reactor in his chest, he could plug into suits. Since the heart surgery, and since he had foolishly, foolishly not be building any new suits, he didn’t have anything to power the suit he was rushing to manufacture.

'Tony, you’ll make it in time,' Pepper promised without cause, sitting on a clear worktable as Tony paced. The many, many screens of his workroom were playing footage of carnage in DC. A man with a metal arm had dropped from a bridge in shaky civilian footage, crushing the roof of the car he had landed on. He had shot Romanov. He had fired an AK-47 into a public bus—Tony couldn’t tell from the footage panicked civilians had gotten before the news chopper had arrived if it were empty or not—in an effort to kill Bucky.

The footage of Bucky tumbling out the emergency roof exit of the bus was clear enough; he hadn’t been killed then, at least. From behind the reversed logo of a Starbucks, Tony watched Bucky grapple with the metal-armed man. Horrifyingly, it seemed like the man was a rival to Bucky’s impossible strength. Bucky’s shield dug into a van and he tugged, unable to pull it out.

'You don’t know that,' Tony said, tearing a hand thru his hair. 'Fuck, Pepper, how could I have been this stupid?'

'You were trying to get better,' she said. 'That’s not stupid.'

'Bucky is out there right now without air support,' Tony pointed out, looking away from the screens and at his beautiful girlfriend. She stared over his shoulder, watching the muted news as anxiously as he had been since Bucky had sent his own SOS text from an unfamiliar number. 'It obviously was stupid. Jesus, I was in trouble and he couldn’t come and now I’m fucking stuck here and useless!'

'Tony,' Pepper started and Tony couldn’t help but shout at her.

'No, _fuck_ , I’m four hours from a suit and then at least another four in the air—'

'He has air support,' Pepper cried suddenly, pointing at the screen. Tony turned just in time to see a man with metal wings swoop down and kick the assassin down before he could fire. 'Oh, my god!' she cried.

'Who the fuck is that?' Tony snapped.

Two STRIKE teams appeared at the cross streets, swarming as Bucky crushed a section of the metal arm with his bare hand. Tony didn’t trust SHIELD much, but he felt relief flood his bones. SHIELD had its problems, but they had sued Bucky and gone after the lawsuit with everything they had. They were there to protect their investment. They would stop the metal-armed man.

Tony watched as two STRIKE agents grabbed the metal-armed man, dragging him into their own vehicle, not the waiting custody wagon. He watched two arrest Romanov, rough with her shot-out shoulder in a way that looked incredibly deliberate as they cuffed her.

'What the fuck?' Tony whispered, staring at the screens. 'JARVIS, search the SHIELD files we have for an operative with a metal arm.' JARVIS chimed an affirmative as Tony kept watching the scene he was so far away from get worse.

With an injured Romanov at gunpoint, the winged man surrendered. STRIKE Team Alpha surrounded Captain America, clear, HD footage from a helicopter. There was no mistake; that was Bucky and SHIELD was going to take him down. They were closing in slow and cautious and after looking up at the chopper, Bucky dropped his shield and knelt, hands on his head.

'What the fuck is happening?' Tony demanded. 'Is SHIELD—' One of the agents placed his gun against Bucky’s neck. Bucky was going to be executed, in the road, like a criminal executed another. 'Are they gonna kill him?' he asked, and his voice came out so much smaller than he thought it would. He risked a glance back at Pepper, who looked as petrified as he felt. Rumlow stopped the agent, and they both glanced up at the chopper’s camera. They placed Bucky in heavy, heavy cuffs and practically hauled him to his feet. They loaded him, like they’d placed Romanov and the other, into the custody wagon.

'Cameras were the only thing that stopped them,' Tony said dimly. 'They would've—SHIELD would have executed Captain America in the street.'

'This doesn’t make sense,' Pepper said. 'Tony, you have to get out there.' He knew that; God, he couldn’t believe he’d been so distracted trying to get better, trying to stop the nightmares that had put Pepper in danger, trying to fix himself, that he’d forgotten that Bucky might need him too. He couldn’t believe he had been so negligent and fucking blind.

'J, man, tell me something good,' he begged again. 'What have you found?'

'I have found something, Sir,' JARVIS admitted. 'Not in the information from the SHIELD hack: I found it in the Stark Industry archives. I don’t think you’re going to like it. Please don’t shoot the messenger.'

^^^

'Sir, he's—he's unstable. Erratic,' one of the scientists warned, his voice on the brink of the asset's awareness. The metal bars of the vault’s door opened for the approaching handler, spiking fear beyond the other sensations flooding the asset’s mainframe. The asset waited, assault weapons at the ready and aimed. The body had filled with adrenaline: unnecessary; calm and passivity were required when in the presence of handlers. The pressure in the skull that was sometimes present was currently fit to burst. The asset was aware of the possibility that it had hit someone. Perhaps the asset had lashed out at the scientists, because sometimes pain broke the instinct to be docile for them. The asset was in pain; they could make nothing worse in punishment for its lashing out.

The weapons lowered as the handlers ordered it. A knife of sensation carved into the skull of the asset, sharp and hot and demanding—

_A man's laughter—the face of a thin mother in near silhouette, speaking low to a doctor in the doorway. 'Consider calling your rabbi, Missus Rogers. I'm afraid there's not a good chance for your boy.'—A friend hauling him off a bruised ego and broken glass in an alley, cursing just soft enough for his hearing to strain for it—_

__

'Mission report.' The asset heard that loud and clear, but pushed at the pain instead, searching out the source of the images, trying to find the correct protocol to explain them. Why did the asset remember a mother? Whose mother was she? What were the images and sensations of a beating in an alleyway? The asset was not so weak as to be beaten in an alley; the handlers would describe such an event as failure and failure was not permissible. What was the explanation for that image, that knowledge? What were the images? What was the source of the unknown system protocol? The asset had not been designed to remember.

'Mission report, _now_ ,' the handler ordered again. The asset heard. It was impossible to make a report when a detail was conflicting with another: Nothing came Before and the man was remembered. An attempt was made to respond, but the mission had been a failure. There had never been failure. Failure was not allowed. Failure had never been reported before. Failure was not an option. The punishment for failure was an unknown external protocol; it must have been more severe than the punishment for delay in success. It seemed impossible that something could be worse than that punishment, but the carving pain of the images was worse. Perhaps failure was the source of this pain. Perhaps failure initiated recollection protocols.

_A familiar face, terrified, reaching for him as he dangled in whipping, cold air—the same face, fond and sad, lit by the pale light of the morning, close enough to share warm breaths—that face in sharp relief of moonlight, his own fingers twitching with the burn for a bit of good charcoal for the shadow of his hair—_

__

A slap met the asset's face. It was a hard hit, but the asset was not allowed to brace itself for punishment from handlers. The asset nearly fell from the reconditioning chair, head bouncing on rebound. Vision blurred: momentary disorientation, not an indicator of concussion. No concern. Copper in mouth: cheek split on teeth, temporary damage. No concern.

A disused bank vault housed the reconditioning room in this location. Reconditioning required pain. Reconditioning required electrocution and neural reset protocols, substantial and additional doses of benzodiazepines and midazolam in addition to the implants delivering the same drugs directly into the brain. Reconditioning left the head feeling distinctly heavy, like the brain was swollen inside its skull. To vocalize the pain of the process would be pointless. The asset's comfort did not matter. The torn IV from the back of a flesh hand stung and pinched, leaking sluggish red as the ripped skin tried to knit back together around needle and tubing deep in a dorsal metacarpal vein, but the asset could barely focus beyond the tight, vibrating feeling of memory. The asset should not have memory. The asset should not have feelings (fear was allowed; fear gave them control). Something was wrong. The asset deliberately did not yearn for his cryochamber to take all this feeling away. System analysis was required, and the asset's programme demanded that analysis and repair were requested. Losing recollection protocols to recondition would stop that pain, let it give way to the pain the asset knew and understood, but it would also stop memory.

The asset requested nothing, and that made terror stung deep in the lungs and heart: anxious. The handler still waited.

'The man on the bridge,' the asset said, before control of the words was certain. 'Who was he?'

The handler hesitated, and the asset knew why. The man on the bridge was the man from the asset's memory. Weapons were not meant to have memory. The system was compromised; the question revealed that. The asset was compromised and would remain so until reconditioning. Perhaps the man on the bridge—the target—was a threat. Perhaps he had initiated recollection protocols; perhaps he had caused the need for more of the system to be reset than ever before (but that wasn't right; there had been more; the brain had been ripped and torn and the heart had been frozen and changed). Nothing came before. No one was coming now. No one came Before.

'You met him on another assignment earlier this week,' the handler said. His answer was littered with clear markers, clear indicators: lie. The asset's programming disallowed past missions from being recalled ( _'For you to remember me by while you're at war,'_ he said, in something that had come Before). The asset remembered the man from something else, and the lie confirmed it. The asset wondered why a handler would work so closely with a highly-trained weapon when he could barely lie to the weapon. Wondering hurt, like hot spikes behind his eyes that followed across neurons as forbidden thoughts crossed ahead of the pain. The asset couldn't accuse that, couldn't speak without orders, wasn't used to thinking on its own. The asset did not wonder—was not allowed the luxury of thought. The asset pushed on that spot in the brain with answers, with the heat of memory, even if it meant pain which would lead to punishment.

_I knew him_ , the asset thought, involuntary. He wasn't supposed to—people knew people; weapons did not. People could think things, know things, but the weapon only knew the mission and only followed orders.

_Laughter, warm and delicate, hushed in the cast of darkness in a forest deep in Europe. Other men, indistinct in time and pain, and the man, with an arm around his shoulder—'Stevie, you fucking punk!'—a lover's caress in a place he knew to be Brooklyn, to be home, soft yet unyielding, warm and wet and perfect—a howl and a thrown shield, dim sound to one side, and the cries of the vanguard to the other—pain—_

'Your work,' the handler began, pulling him—the asset out of flashbacks, 'has been a gift to mankind. You shaped this century, and I need you to do it one more time.'

The asset was breaking down, shorting out. Remembering _hurt_ , and the heart's chambers twinged sharply, knowing how far away these images were from the asset. The heart hurt to know they were gone. It felt like a malfunction. Malfunction should be reported, but the report would make them commence reconditioning, stopping the twinge of longing in the heart; they would rob the memories before the asset could understand them. The asset had to understand or the asset would be punished, would fail again. Failure would compromise more protocols; failure would wrought pain.

'Society is at a tipping point between order and chaos. Tomorrow morning, we're gonna give it a push. But if you don't do your part, I can't do mine, and HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves.'

The words hummed. The words were not nearly as beautiful as the most painful memory. The words felt like they should sound right, but the words didn't quite make sense. This wasn't freedom. The mission was never about freedom. The handlers did not endorse freedom, not even in the guards; they valued obedience and unquestioning trigger fingers. The handlers took the idea of freedom from the asset long ago, with four big incisions, an electric drill, and neurocauterization— _a rally and the beating he got when the cops came; a friend standing over him as his scalp was peeled back, hot tears soaking his face_ —The asset had no choice; the asset had no part. The asset was merely a weapon, and weapons shot only where aimed. The asset had to—the asset had the mission— _'mission is to take down the weapons facility and take control of the research labs'—a strong jaw and slight curls in the humidity, shouting orders to a squad of officers about to lead men into battle—_

'This isn't freedom,' the asset said. The asset's gaze met the handler's eyes like a person would. 'This is fear.' Breath whistled into lungs; the physical sensation of fear almost, almost outweighed the pain. It did not come close to outweighing the asset’s surety that freedom was not what the handlers valued. Lips twisted and the urge to hide the burning in the eyes was very acute but the asset— _something_ was too stubborn to look away, almost daring the handler to strike him again. The asset was not programmed for acute emotion; that had been taken out with electricity and the constancy of terror and pain. It stabbed in the brain, like lightning that had cut old paths there, only to be flooded by an encroaching, swirling hurricane, itching to be scrawled in charcoal and graphite, and the absence of something _—a charming grin, an exhausted laugh, shouting about learning to stay down—_ made phantom arrhythmia pound inside the asset's ribcage: precious, _hateful_ , foreign, familiar malfunction. The asset did not break eye contact; the asset had never really learned to stay down.

The handler turned away, and the asset knew it had failed more than the mission. The asset didn't know what could be more than the mission. The asset only knew the mission. The asset only knew of the mission at hand, not the one before or the first one; the mission was the only thing it had. If the mission had failed, what else could the asset be? What else made this acute feeling occur? What else was there? For what else was the asset made? Wetness fell from eyes: weakness, nothing more.

'Prep him.'

The scientist protested. The asset knew why. He was too warm. The soil scorched by the coldest lightning and then frozen was melting, turning malleable and breaking thru the programming, giving unknown commands to the weapon's mainframe. The earth was supposed to be frozen and dead but it had been outside of cryofreeze for too long; the mind was defrosting, warming, soaking up light— _hope_ —from the present and burning the asset's eyes. The sensation was impossibly human; it panicked the asset and forced lungs to hitch.

'He's been out of cryofreeze too long,' the scientist protested, because the asset might be a person after all, might have had a mother, and a friend, a lover—the asset might be a _person_ —might have been loved—he might—

'Then wipe him,' the handler said, and at least this flood of recollective agony would be taken by reconditioning, even if that was a torture— _'Are we only torturing him?' asked a young nurse, in Russian, which was starting to piece together. 'Weapons cannot be tortured,' a voice replied, assured. 'Only fixed.' The mask affixed to his face flooded and his scalp was again pulled away as the world faded—_ in and of itself. The asset shivered despite the biology which disallowed such discomfort as cold. The asset felt cold. The asset _felt_.

'And start over.'

The asset felt sick. Reconditioning would at least take that with everything else. Reconditioning would stop the sensation of memory, which burned and threatened to shatter all other protocols, leaving the asset with unimaginable knowledge and to fend for itself. It would stop thought and restore protocol. It would be less pain, because the handlers would be pleased. It would be less pain, because there was never a choice.

'Sir, your little monologue there—' began one of the doctors. Alexander Pierce turned to him coldly. The doctor fell silent.

'Are you aware of who the asset was before?' he asked. The asset did not look over; the asset did not risk the handlers remembering they were within hearing distance of the device embedded in the skull and that the conditioning had not yet begun. 'Because I am. And I'm aware of why that man fought. Our corrections have always been tenuous and we don't have time to cut new ones. Getting what's beneath the programming on our side is just as important as the programming itself.'

'Using words like that to poke at what's beneath is dangerous,' the doctor said. 'We have him function like a computer for a reason. Words like freedom mean something to him—' The handler retorted, but another doctor had held out the mouthguard and fear of what was to come made the asset lose the words behind the artificial noise of blood rushing thru ears. Teeth were bared as the protocol demanded; the mouthguard was placed against them.

The asset had something underneath, something the handlers of all people feared. Hands touched shoulders and the asset was pushed back, leaning into the chair and shaking as metal encircled the head. He held onto that thought, his fists tight as restraints closed around arms. He held onto it because it was _important_. The handlers aimed the asset to bring the world to order; if the asset wanted to bring the world freedom, he had to remember why he wasn't the only one who was afraid. He had been something Before. Before existed.

Electricity snapped thru his body, thru his brain, and the thought, the thought, the memory: everything fell away.

_I fell once._

^^^

'This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize,' Fury sighed, looking at a photo of Alexander Pierce. Bucky had been approached by the man after Fury had been declared dead; he hadn't bought, even then, that Pierce was Fury's friend. He'd not been fooled. He'd known there was something behind those eyes, something Bucky had thought he had to avoid at the time. Now he knew he had to face it head on, face it to save Steve from whatever they'd done to make him forget who he was. 'He said peace wasn't an achievement; it was a responsibility. See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues.' Fury tossed the photo down.

'He didn’t lie,' Bucky cut in, unable to help himself. 'He avoided certain truths.' Fury levelled him with a glare. Bucky glared right back, because how dare Fury act like he was a victim here when he had let HYDRA percolate and plan for years under his direct supervision.

'Boys,' Maria said, before Fury could tell Bucky to fuck off. 'We have bigger fish than your pissing contest.'

'We have less than seventeen hours to stop the launch,' Natasha agreed. The doctor was finishing stitching her shoulder, which had turned out to be a simple, painful thru-and-thru shot. Bucky knew Nat would follow them into battle later today, torn muscles and ligaments and lost blood or no. He knew he could trust her to have his back, and shaken as he was, he needed that. It was a relief to have someone at his side and at his six. Sam was along too, and Bucky was sure the para-rescuer would hold his own under normal circumstances, but he hadn’t fought against enemies like HYDRA. Natasha had been forged by the Red Room and the KBG; she knew this type of evil as well as Bucky.

'I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore,' Fury said, before tugging a small black case towards him with his unslung arm.

'What’s that?' Sam asked.

'Once the helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites,' Maria explained, 'becoming fully weaponized.' Bucky leaned his elbows on the table and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Project: Insight was evil. Even if it had been truly owned by SHIELD, it would have been evil. If HYDRA hadn’t been behind it, Bucky might never have found out and that evil would have gotten into the world. He never thought he’d be thankful for terrorism.

'We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own,' Fury said, gesturing to the case. Bucky wondered if these blades had been made as a sick precaution, or if Fury had hurried to make them now, when he realised almost too late that HYDRA was using SHIELD as a protective blanket.

'One or two won't cut it,' Maria went on. 'We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remains operational a whole lot of people are gonna die. Once they’re in the air and weaponized, they will be virtually impossible to take down.'

'We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA,' Fury added. 'We need to get pass them, insert the server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left—'

'We’re not _salvaging_ anything,' Bucky snapped. His hands lowered from his face. He was too angry for them to even shake, stilling for the first time since the cuffs had locked around them. 'We’re not just taking down the carriers, you fucker; we're taking down SHIELD in its God damned entirety.'

'SHIELD had nothing to do with this,' Fury pointed out.

'SHIELD’s been compromised,' Natasha replied.

'You’ve said so yourself,' Bucky agreed. 'SHIELD doesn’t exist. SHIELD is a couple of people trying for peace and holding logos and posing for cameras while HYDRA uses its resources to create the end of the fucking world. HYDRA was right under your nose and nobody noticed it for shit.' His tone dared Fury to disagree and Fury did so easily, too casual for Bucky to feel anything but rage.

'Why do you think we're meeting in this cave?' Fury asked. 'I noticed.'

'You noticed too late,' Bucky snapped. 'I wasn’t even working for you and I found out the extent of HYDRA’s plan before you did. I had, what, thirty hours notice? You had maybe eighteen? That’s not a great turnaround time for the man in charge. What the _fuck_ is your excuse for this?' He was shouting.

'Bucky,' Natasha murmured, a warning to calm down. He leaned back in his chair.

'How many people are gonna pay the price for what you didn’t notice? How many people have already paid it?' he asked, forcing his voice out at a reasonable volume.

'Look, I didn't know about Rogers,' Fury offered. Bucky scoffed, trying to hide the slice in his chest at that. He didn’t believe that. Everything else had been lies; why would this be different?

'Even if you had, would you have told me?' Bucky demanded. 'Or would you have told me you had information I would really want and would only get if I gave you the rights to my DNA, if I let you own me like a fucking machine, like cattle?'

'I wouldn’t have told you,' Fury said easily, confusing honesty for kindness. 'I would have neutralized the threat. I don’t think you’re capable of that. You were in love with him once and that doesn’t make you the best operative to take out the Winter Soldier.' Bucky stared at him, every cell inside of him quiet.

'What the fuck did you just say?' he whispered, his voice gone weak suddenly. Fury couldn’t know that; it had been Bucky’s best-kept secret when Steve was alive—before Steve fell. Fury blinked his one eye, glancing at Natasha. Bucky followed his gaze, and Nat looked down, avoiding his eyes. 'Holy shit,' he said, understanding in a flood. He got up, needing to get away.

'Bucky,' Natasha called after him. He ignored her. He couldn’t believe she had told Fury; he had never, ever told anyone how he felt about Steve and the person he thought he trusted had sold him out to the same man trying to steal Bucky’s rights away from him. Fuck, Natasha had probably been giving Fury ammunition against him in information this whole time he’d known her. He had fucking _kissed_ her; he had meant it too. He had held her when she cried and promised to catch her if she fell, slept next to her and felt safe and warm all night. She had taken his secrets and traded them away. He left the small room they were hiding in, rushing out of the bunker and into open air. The door didn’t bang shut behind him until eight seconds after it should have.

'Buck,' Nat began, sounding incredibly, believably sorry.

'Don’t,' he growled, his voice harsh. He didn’t know why the nickname hurt right then, but it felt like a twisting knife between his ribs. 'Don’t you fucking dare.'

'I’m sorry,' she said anyways. He turned away from the viaduct he was staring at.

'How the fuck does your sorry make this OK?' Bucky demanded. 'You sold me out. I have literally never told anyone who Steve was to me. How long did you hold onto that piece of information before you gave it to Fury, huh? Did you go straight to him? Did you wait a week? How long?' He didn’t know why it mattered, but it felt like it did. Nat didn’t break his gaze as she confessed.

'When we hung out in New York, in the downtown of DC, it was on my own time,' she said. 'Whenever I came to your apartment, I was wearing a wire.' Her words hit him like a grenade. The knife in his ribs wrenched and he turned away. 'Bucky, it was my job. You’re my friend and I regret every second of it—'

'It was your _job_?' he laughed, but it sounded like sandpaper. Bucky pressed his hands to his eyes again, swiping away the wetness they found there. 'You asked me about the love of my life because it was your _job_?'

'I’m sorry,' she said again. 'I’d take it back if I could. I stopped. I’m pretty sure they bugged your place with stationary equipment after, but I stopped and I want to take it back.'

'You can’t take this back,' he promised her, perhaps more severe than he needed to be. He didn’t care. He felt like a monster licking its wounds; he felt weak despite the fact he was supposed to have no option but to be strong. 'None of us can go back, no matter how much we want to, no matter how much we pray.'

'I don’t believe in God,' Natasha pointed out.

'Well, it’s about damn time to start believing in _something_ , Natasha!' he yelled, anger burning at him again. ' _Fuck_!' The anger made everything worse. It made the stab of betrayal burn hot and it burned at his eyes when all he wanted to do was man up. She held his gaze, sincere. Bucky didn’t trust it. He couldn’t.

'I believe in you,' she said, like a promise. He shook his head, a laugh tumbling out of his broken chest.

'You better find something else,' he told her. He meant a lot more than that, and by the look on her face, she understood. She looked like she was a twelve year old innocent, slapped across the face. He turned away, marching down the viaduct.

'Where are you going?' she called, soft enough to reach him and quiet enough to not carry in the wind. He hadn’t taken the same precaution, shouting at her, but nothing in the world could make him regret lashing out in this moment.

'If we’re going to war,' Bucky said, 'I need a uniform.'

^^^

Bucky froze when he reached the gangway which lead to the computer bank he needed to disengage. Steve stood there, halfway between Bucky and his goal. His eyes were blank and the muzzle Bucky had torn off had been replaced by another. Bucky stared at him, and Steve tilted his head slightly, staring back. The movement was eerie. The gaze was flat and mechanical; it wasn't even eye contact, just an observation of a threat. Bucky hated it; it filled his stomach with worms and twists. It hurt him to see Steve without any of himself, like shattered ribs hurt, not a bit of his everything left for Bucky to pick out, and Bucky had known him better than absolutely anyone.

'I need to get past you,' Bucky told him simply, as if that would work. Steve didn't move. He didn't react. Steve stared. Bucky risked a step forward and Steve moved almost too fast to see, his Sig Sauer immediately in his hand and aimed at Bucky's head, no doubt right between the fucking eyes. Bucky had a gun today too, but he couldn’t bring himself to aim it at Steve. It stayed clipped in the holster at his belt. His shield rested, still, on his shoulders.

'Steve,' he said, when Nat nearly screamed in his com that he needed to move, and move now. Alfa- and Bravo-lock had already occurred; Nat and Sam had managed and evacuated before the ships had lifted off. Bucky had distracted the guards in the loading bay until Sam flew back up to the service panel in the roof Bucky had broken off, leaving Nat above the hole to fire and cover Bucky as Bucky rushed into the third helicarrier. Sam had flown to distract STRIKE teams, until Rumlow had shot him down. He was grounded, Nat was picking off HYDRA from the roof, Hill was trying to corral real SHIELD agents against the HYDRA they worked alongside in the HQ building, and he was alone.

The birds had started lifting then, rising, automated, and Nat’s position became useless at the roof began folding in on itself. The engines lifted slow and steady, but Bucky felt afraid enough to swear he could feel a thousand tiny bumps of turbulence under his feet.

'Stevie, come on,' he begged. Bucky needed to get Charlie-lock in. At the sound of his name, Steve tilted his head again, sharply and small, as if it jarred something internally. 'Steve, a lot of people are gonna die if we don't stop HYDRA.' Steve stared, his level gaze shifting somehow, immeasurably. His gun's aim did not falter a single millimetre. 'Innocent people,' Bucky continued, hoping to God he had read that absolute nothing as the correct something. 'Millions of civilians, people who committed no crimes, most of whom probably won’t ever.'

'They’re going to be _slaughtered_ ,' he said. 'You gotta help me stop it.' Steve's eyebrows twitched into the barest hint of a frown. His mechanical gaze (HYDRA's most secret weapon's scope) shifted to Bucky's shoulder, away from his head, staying the threat for a momentary second. 'Steve, you believe in freedom. Is this freedom? Holding a gun to every single person on Earth? Is that right?' One of Steve's feet took a step back, like he was preparing for a blow.

'This isn't gonna bring freedom or peace anywhere,' Bucky told him. 'It's just gonna make people afraid and it's just gonna kill. This isn't anything good; it's just fear-mongering. It's just murder.' Something in Steve's eyes told Bucky that he wanted to agree; the muzzle seemed to stop him. 'I'm afraid too,' Bucky admitted, and Steve's gun lowered an inch as he stared vaguely, listening. 'You have to let me by,' Bucky continued. 'You have to help me stop it. You have to help me stop them.' For a horrifying moment with his friends' shouting at him in his ear, nothing happened.

Steve lowered his gun, looking fully away from Bucky. His hair fell, covering what little of his face Bucky could see past the muzzle. He turned away, pressing his back to the railing and letting Bucky rush past him. Bucky tore open the computer bank he needed, and there was a metallic clank and then a small thud behind him. He slid the blade out of his belt and into place, fast as he dared with such a slip of delicate green metal in his hand. He reported Charlie-lock into his com. He could see out the glass panels that the helicarriers were properly flying; nowhere near three thousand feet, but high enough that he couldn’t bail. Water lay below them. He didn’t know how to get out.

'Bucky, get out of there,' Nat ordered. 'Dive into the river if you have to; I will personally fish you out. I swear to God, OK? I know you hate water, but I _swear_ on my life, I will get you out.'

'Bucky, the ships are aiming on each other,' Sam added. 'It's working. You gotta go. Doesn't matter how; just get out now.' He ignored them. He had to. He ripped his com out of his ear; he tossed it aside. None of it mattered now. He'd thrown his life away before because Steve was gone. He was gonna throw it away to get him back just as fucking easily. He would throw any number of his lives and worlds away to get Steve back. Steve had dropped his gun, and he had dropped to his knees. He was holding his head, one hand on either temple and clawing. Bucky recognized pain when he saw it. He couldn't leave Steve behind. He never had been able to and he never should have.

'Stevie,' he said as he dropped to his knees beside him on the narrow gangway. Steve didn't reply, just let out a high-pitched noise of absolute agony. It twisted at Bucky, just tore him to shreds. 'Stevie, we have to move.' He made the mistake of touching Steve, muscle memory demanding Bucky provide the physical comfort Steve used to crave. In the torment he was in, Steve stuck out by instinct, hitting Bucky's chest hard enough to send him flying nearly six feet back. He hit the ground hard, his lungs stunned by the incredible blow and his spine shooting lighting where he struck the hard metal of the dying helicarrier. He forced himself to release air and breathe again and it hurt.

Steve hauled himself over the railing and dropped onto the very floor of the helicarrier below, not making it very far before his knees gave out again. He fell onto all fours and as Bucky tried desperately to roll to his own knees and get up, Steve's little fist touched the ground in that tell-tale gesture. God, resisting the orders, denying his brainwashing, it looked like it was killing him.

'Steve!' he called again, like a useless record.

'Who is that?' Steve begged, desperate to make the tearing of his brain stop. 'Who is that?' His voice was small thru the muzzle. It was shaky and pained on its own.

Bucky clambered to his feet and jumped the railing. It was only ten feet down. As he dropped, the ship received its first blast. It listed suddenly as he fell, and Bucky stumbled on his landing, his lower joints jarring. He caught himself on a wrist and practically tumbled to Steve's side. He did not touch him.

Somewhere, somewhere close, the hull had been blown open. Parts of the electronics along the walls were sparking and burning, hit and hit hard. Air whipped at them, tugging Steve's hair and sending the acid of anxiety along Bucky's arteries. It was cold air, sharp and fast, like the air that had blown thru the shattered windscreen of the Valkyrie, like the furious gust that had blown about the train before Steve fell. He had failed then and he wasn't going to fail now.

'Your name is Steve,' he said, desperate. He couldn't resist; he grabbed the back of Steve's neck possessively, needing to feel his everything was alive, that his skin was warm, and that that meant there was still a chance Bucky could fix the rest, somehow, someway. Fuck, he still didn't know that stupid fucking prayer. 'Your name is Steven Grant Rogers. You're just a kid from Brooklyn; you're just like me.' Steve's eyes screwed shut, a tear falling and running shortly down his cheek until it hit that mask. Bucky wished he could tear it off; he didn't dare reach for Steve's face right now. He didn't dare try to take a piece of Steve's armour; he would need as much as he could get to get thru remembering himself. Bucky understood that much. 'You were an artist. You served as a medic before you were taken prisoner by HYDRA. I freed you then; I came for you.'

'Nothing comes for weapons,' Steve said, hard to understand. He sounded like he was clenching his teeth behind his muzzle.

'Steve, I'm sorry it took so long, but I'm here,' Bucky said. He shook Steve as hard as he dared, tightening his grip to what he was sure was an almost counterweight pain, a mild pressure to distract from whatever scars in his brain were currently lighting up red hot or white cold. 'I'm here. I came for you. It's time to come back with me.'

'I—' Steve said, before stopping. He pulled out of Bucky's grip, curling low on himself. He sobbed silently, his shoulders hitching and his metal arm letting out an incredible whine as it recalibrated. Steve hit that fist to the ground, agonized, leaving a dent behind.

'Come on, Stevie, you know I'm right!' Bucky shouted, suddenly furious. This wasn't anything like Steve being stubborn or pigheaded; this was Steve lost without even himself to pull him back to shore. It was like no anger Bucky had ever felt before. 'How many times you said you'd wished you'd listened to me, huh? Listen to me now. You know me! You know me and it is time to go!'

'I _don't_ —' Steve tried, but the fight was leaking out of him. Bucky had always been able to calm him down, after he'd busted his knuckles up, no matter how angry he tried to stay. 'I don't know—'

'You do; you know me,' Bucky said, begging his friend. 'We grew up together. I am your best friend. I've saved your life more times than I can count, just like you saved me.'

'You're my _mission_ ,' Steve sobbed, and the ship lurched around them, one side dropping as an engine received a hard, hard hit, already compromised from the first. Bucky's knees went out from under him, sending him flying across the ship to the open hole in the hull below. He scrabbled for purchase, tried to hold onto the hull and failed. A hand grabbed him as he dropped out, grabbed one of the leather straps of his uniform.

'Fuck!' Bucky screamed, grabbing Steve's arm, his sleeve, anything, holding on for dear life, clawing and terrified. He stared at the Potomac below, the water rioting as bits of fuselage and fire rained from above. It looked so much worse than the white wall he had plummeted towards in the Arctic; it looked like Hell on Earth.

Bucky looked away from the water and up at Steve. Steve's metal hand had grasped onto the hull of the ship, anchoring him well inside and allowing him to support Bucky. The ship was burning. The ship was going to break apart and Steve scanned the interior of the ship as he held Bucky like nothing. Bucky tried to pull himself up, using Steve's arm and grabbing no purchase with his shaking hands, and Steve spoke.

'The carrier is compromised,' Steve warned.

'Pull me in!' Bucky shouted back, half out of his head with the fucking nightmare of falling again to his death. ' _Fuck_ , Steve, pull me up!' He looked back down at the churning, splashing, burning water and suddenly he was falling towards it. Steve had let him go.

He hit the water like it was concrete and it stunned him on impact. The cold was the next thing to stun him; his lungs contracted as if they were as scared as Bucky was. His eyes squeezed shut, and he tried to force his body to cooperate but the impact, the fear, the cold, the water, the fucking God damned terror in his heart hindered his efforts. His chest burned and his lungs begged for air as he sank, trying in vain to swim up, up, but he didn't know which way was up and if he opened his eyes, he'd see the inside of the plane—he'd be back there—he'd be _dying_ —he thrashed in the water, desperate, frantic—his lungs tried to pull air and dirty water burned him, choking him—fuck, he was drowning and he didn't think he'd wake up this time—

Something wrapped around him as darkness closed.

^^^

The asset could have left the body in the water; panic made the target's efforts to swim undirected and uncoordinated. The weight of his suit and boots and the shield still lashed to his back would have left him to be dredged up with the rest of the wreckage; death by proxy was still a mission complete. The asset could have stayed in the helicarrier, crashed and died and been free of the programmes. The asset should have returned to rendezvous.

The asset understood that the frantic attempts at swimming, the desperate request to be pulled back into a crashing helicarrier came from terror, unadulterated and visceral. The target did not deserve to be afraid. The target was kind and strong and loved; the asset remembered that. The target broke bones and cried in his sleep after he did.

The asset could have completed the mission and been frozen again. The asset did not cry.

The asset did not complete the mission. The asset dragged the body to shore and hands searched for med packs that had never been worn— _they had been Before_ —and upon finding none, rolled the body to the left.

A well-aimed blow to the back, gentle as the asset could be while being efficient, spurred a cough, then a spill of water, then more coughing. The asset rolled the body more and allowed the target to vomit up the water he had swallowed. The scent was unpleasant. The asset grabbed the leather straps of the familiar uniform and dragged the body from the vomit and rejected water. Still with closed eyes and a lolling head, the body came easily into the cover of the meagre trees by the river.

'Bucky,' the asset said, unbidden. The mask had been lost, snapping off when the asset dove into the water and his jaw worked easily around the sounds. The asset's metal hand released the strap it held and the body fell into the dirt. 'Bucky,' he said again. What was this protocol that leapt to awareness, demanding to be followed, of saving and searching for wounds and breath sounds and an even pulse? The asset worked thru the protocol, counting silently as his flesh hand touched a neck and then a wrist. The neck could be broken easily, even with the weaker flesh arm. The neck could be broken and the handlers would be pleased.

The asset moved the body back onto its side, three-quarters prone and one arm raised— _prone: take the shot, make the kill, complete the mission_ —and then counted breaths again.

'Bucky,' the asset repeated. Was Bucky the identity of this target? The asset couldn't—the asset couldn't remember. 'Bucky?'

The asset sat next to the body, staring at the face. He remembered it. The asset remembered. This had been the man who first initiated recollection protocols. This man had started this cycle of thought and pain and jolted resistance into the protocols. This man had been more than that, but the asset couldn’t remember.

The asset had to kill him. The asset had to complete the mission. The asset had to slice or shoot or break—the metal arm reached and the asset struggled to stop.

The asset didn't want to.

That thought shocked. That thought forced a gasp. That thought put a shake into the flesh hand and the metal fingers closed into a fist without a direct command from the programme.

The shaking hand twitched for the blade still tucked into its holster along the muscle of the thigh. Lightning and fire swirled thru the asset's brain, forcing his eyes closed to try to squeeze out the smoke. He didn't want to kill Bucky. He didn't want to kill anyone.

The asset struggled to stand, struggled to step back and away from the target, the prone, easy victim. The asset's programming demanded the mission be completed. Nerves in his limited flesh encased in the metal arm pinched at the refusal to finish, painful and jerking and horrible. Lungs whistled and tightened in panic, even tho the asset had not swallowed any water, and the mechanics inside the arm released corticosteroids into the bloodstream to counteract the tightening of airways and the inflammation of the lungs. Epinephrine shortly followed, and the path of it thru the blood strengthened the programme's demand.

The asset had to retreat. The asset couldn't be here. The asset couldn't stand so close to the target; the pain was too much and he would give in. The asset had to retreat.

As he began stumbling into the forest, as he forced himself to resist and to fail, he heard footfalls and someone else shouting.

'Bucky!' a woman's voice yelled. 'Buck!' A man's voice followed hers, shouting the name again and again. The asset retreated quicker. The asset couldn't determine who these people were, if they were handlers, if they had come to collect him. The recollection protocols had disrupted the asset's internal clock; the mission had been given ten hour parameters, and if those hours had passed, then the asset had failed and would be collected.

If the asset were collected now, the handlers would force completion. The handlers would kill Bucky with him as their knife, their fist. The handlers would punish and the asset couldn't imagine the pain getting worse than this.

He fled.

^^^

Bucky woke up suddenly as someone tried to peel his eye open. He blinked his irritated eyes and tried to focus past the bright light running over him.

'He's conscious,' a woman said. 'Hey there,' she said, and the bright light moved away. Bucky stared up into the face of a black woman, kneeling over him. Branches and leaves fluttered beyond her head, the blue sky behind them rented by black, heavy smoke. 'Do you know your name?' she asked, and Bucky realised she was a paramedic by her vest and the blue nitrile gloves covering her hands. He turned his head, ignoring the second paramedic kneeling beside him, holding an O2 mask to his face. Bucky tried to knock the mask away and the male paramedic retreated. He didn't answer the question, twisting his head this way and that, feeling new panic rise inside of him. It must have shown because a hand landed ever-so-gently on his sternum. 'Easy,' she warned. He pushed her away, struggling to sit.

'Where's Steve?' he asked in a croak. He tried to clear his throat but it hurt. The woman looked down at him, frowning. He spotted Nat and Sam anxiously standing behind the man at his side. He pushed his elbow into the forest floor below him, wavering at he stood.

'Bucky,' Nat snapped, and the male paramedic steadied him before he fell, staggering under over two hundred pounds of enhanced muscle. The world was spinning. 'Put the oxygen back on, you fucker.'

'Where's Steve?' he repeated, moving away from the medics. Sam shook his head when Bucky looked at him, begging. 'Fuck. Where is he? Where did he—Steve!' Bucky shouted. He scanned the brush around them, looking for an obvious path.

He found one, and it looked like Steve had stumbled away as much as Bucky was stumbling now on spaghetti legs.

'Bucky, for fuck's sake,' Nat said, appearing at his side as he pushed thru a previously disturbed bush. 'You were alone when we found you.'

'No,' Bucky said, unreasonable. 'No, _fuck you_ ; he was here. He pulled me out.' He cupped his hands around his mouth. 'Steve!' He followed the path, but it stopped after about twenty feet, like it had only taken Steve that long to remember to disguise his route behind him, to barely disturb anything in the first place.

' _Steve_!' he shouted again, circling the small clearing. Nat and Sam burst out of the brush beside him and he honestly thought he might break down and cry, right in front of them. 'Steve,' he whispered, his heart ripping in his chest.

'He was gone by the time we got here,' Sam said. 'We saw you drop and we came. We couldn't have been more than fifteen, twenty minutes.'

'Well, he couldn't have gotten far,' Bucky reasoned. 'Can we—God, is there anyway we can cut him off, find him before he’s gone?'

'Bucky,' Nat said softly, a no if he'd ever heard one. His heart shattered and he sank onto the ground, kneeling in leaves and pine needles and dirt. 'Buck, I'm so sorry,' she said, and he honestly didn't know what she was sorry for. He didn't know if she was sorry Steve was gone, sorry Steve had been taken in the first place, or sorry she'd stirred his heart when it turned out the person it had belonged to first was still alive. He was still alive and he needed help. He needed saving.

'Hey, man, breathe,' Sam said, kneeling next to Bucky. Bucky huffed out a breath to humour him, but what was the point? Steve had left; Steve was gone. If Nat had tried before to track down the Winter Soldier, how could Bucky think he'd ever find him?


	3. come home tomorrow

The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom.  
_Freedom would require them to eject this image and replace it with autonomy and responsibility._  
Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly.  
Freedom is not an ideal outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth.  
It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion.

\- Freire, the Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

^^^

The asset barely remembered to disguise its path as it made its way into the woods, along the river. The asset didn’t know where to go. The asset was lost. The asset had abandoned the mission and returning to rendezvous was not an option, not if the asset wanted to keep remembering. It was not an option if the asset wanted to stop feeling pain. Recollection protocols were more painful than anything, but they came with memory and they were worse than punishment. If handlers could make nothing worse in pain, then the asset didn’t need to be afraid of them.

The handlers had been afraid of him too. There had to be a reason for that, but the asset didn’t know.

The asset stumbled to a stop, unsure of where he was headed or where he was coming from. What had happened? It was hard to piece together. The asset remembered orders and parameters; the asset had not been designed to remember its own decisions. The asset had not been designed to make decisions. The asset didn’t know how.

Branches above him shook suddenly and a few snapped. The asset scrambled backwards as a metal man landed in front of him. He almost fell to the ground as pain made him uncoordinated. The asset considered running back the way it had come, but Bucky was back there and the asset could still feel orders rising, burning, demanding the mission be completed. The ten hour window for success had closed, but killing was still an option. Punishment was now inescapable.

The eyes of the metal man glowed blue and faded. The metal face rose and a familiar, human face lay beneath. Memory flickered; the man who had made the cryochamber looked like this, had the same dark eyes and worried expression. That man had been shot between the eyes and his car wreckage burned; that man had been a friend and then helped replace his twisted bones with metal and screws. The asset closed its eyes and shook its head, hard, trying to shake the images out. That man had been a friend and then a scientist; the handlers listened to him until they made him a target, and this man looked like him, but wasn’t. He could fly and clearly the asset was being collected. He had failed to return to rendezvous but they were here to collect the asset. The asset would be punished. Maybe the asset would be proven wrong; maybe the pain could get worse than this.

'Holy shit,' the metal man said. 'You’re Steve Rogers.' The target had said that too, but the asset didn’t know. The asset couldn’t confirm. ‘The files weren’t wrong; it’s really you. Holy fucking shit.’

'I don’t know who I am,' the asset admitted. His hair was still wet from the river; bits stuck to the forehead and fell into his eyes, obscuring his vision and compromising his aim. He had no more weapons. The asset had dropped his gun when stopping those people from being murdered by murderers like him, by machines aimed and fired. He had removed his weapons belt for the lessened weight before diving after the target. He had thrown the last knife he had had away as he ran from Bucky, terrified he might use it. If the asset was being collected, the asset could not use weapons. Compromised aim did not matter; calm and passivity were required when in the presence of handlers. 'I don’t _know_.' The asset felt new wetness on his cheeks, but the asset didn’t know where it came from.

'OK,' the metal man said, slow and placating. He had his hands up, the repulsors in his palms switched firmly off: no threat, no concern. He took a slow step towards the asset, and the asset did not move. The handler had come to collect him, even a handler he only sort of recognized. This wasn’t right; nothing felt right ( _Nothing had come Before_ ). 'OK. Hey, hey,' he said, soothing. The asset realized his breath was coming hard and panicked. He attempted to calm, but he couldn’t. 'My name is Tony.'

'Not Howard,' the asset blurted, not recognizing the name even as it came out of his mouth. Tony shook his head.

'No,' Tony agreed. 'But you can trust me, all right? I promise. Do you want to come with me? I’ll take you to somewhere safe. I’ll take you to Bucky.' The asset shook his head. The asset stumbled, retreating slightly.

'No. Not Bucky,' he begged. 'Please.' He hadn’t begged in decades, he realised. Begging had not stopped the pain and it did not stop the tearing sensation of memory flooding thru him. 'I don’t want to complete the mission. I don’t want to kill Bucky.'

'You don’t have to, Steve,' Tony said immediately. 'No more mission,' Tony promised. 'No more HYDRA, not for you.'

'HYDRA,' Steve echoed, because that word meant something. It meant something, something unlike the word _freedom_ , unlike the word _hope_. Tony nodded. He moved his hand, reaching for the asset’s. The asset felt scared. The asset _felt_.

'No more mission,' Tony said again. 'It’s over. You’re free.'

'Freedom does not come for weapons,' the asset pointed out, inching closer against his programming. This man was not a handler. The handlers forced and aimed weapons towards targets and then shut them down for cryo storage; for all the handler in the bank had claimed the asset had a part that had been manipulation. That had been a lie. This did not feel like a lie. Tony said freedom and he meant what the asset knew the word should be.

'Yeah, but you’re a person,' Tony told him. 'Come on. We can’t stay here. HYDRA agents are swarming the area still, trying to recover what they can before Hill or the DCPD can arrest them.' The asset did not understand but it did not matter. If there was no mission, if this handler promised there was no mission, nothing mattered. The asset did not matter. 'Somebody might come after you.'

'No one comes for weapons,' the asset said. He stepped forward and trusted. He didn’t understand what trust was, but something hummed in his bones and it sounded like trust. 'Who are you?' he asked.

'I’m Tony,' Tony said again. 'I’m Howard’s son. I’m Bucky’s friend. I’ll protect you. I’ll keep you from anybody who tries to hurt you.'

'Bucky deserves friends,' the asset let out, but he didn’t know what that meant. The asset didn’t know and everything hurt. He was shaking.

'Yeah, he does,' Tony agreed. 'You’re his friend too. Will you come with me?'

'Why are you asking?' the asset wondered. Handlers did not ask permission. Weapons did not give permission. Weapons had no part, no choice. The asset had no choice.

'You gotta want to,' Tony told him. 'I’m not gonna take you home if you don’t want to go.'

'Home,' he said, gasping. That was another word that meant something. It meant something big, something warm, something safe, kind and right. 'I want to go home,' he agreed. Tony reached out a hand again, and the asset placed his own metal hand inside it. 'I want to go home.'

^^^

'Hey,' Bucky said tiredly, answering Sam’s phone when STARK popped up on the display. He’d lifted the phone from where it rested on Sam’s knee. He barely remembered to control his grip as to not crush it in his hand. Sam looked over at him from the back of the cab they were taking to Sam’s house. 'You got my message,' he assumed. 'It’s over, at least for now.'

'Yeah,' Tony agreed. 'Did you know the Winter Soldier and Steve Rogers are the same person?' he asked. Bucky almost started crying again at that. He screwed his eyes shut and braced his elbow against the closed window, covering his eyes with the hand not clutching a phone.

'Yeah,' he managed. 'Yeah, I broke his muzzle and there he fucking was. He pulled me out of the river when I was drowning again and then took off. He’s gone.'

'Uh, no, he’s not,' Tony said. Bucky lifted his head out of his hand. He was sure he had heard incorrectly, somehow, despite his serumed ears. 'Cap?' Tony asked, like he thought Bucky’s silence meant the call was dropped.

'What?' Bucky said, unable to even think.

'I came as fast as I could make a suit and get out from California,' Tony said. 'I tracked the radio transmit implants that, uh, HYDRA put in the arm and I picked him up, took him to the private airport in DC and took him home.' There was something there Tony wasn’t saying, but it was far from a secure line so Bucky didn’t press. He was still stuck on the idea that Tony had Steve. Nat and Sam had dragged him to a hospital where they kept an unnecessary eye on his respiratory function for three terrible hours. He had felt in his bones that he had to start looking for Steve right away, but he’d also known Nat hadn’t been able to find hide nor hare of him five years ago. He’d thought it was hopeless, but apparently he didn’t have to look at all. ‘I would’ve called sooner, but I wanted to have him home; what if someone tried to stop me from getting him out of DC?’

'What?' Bucky said again, still confused. 'I mean, _what_?'

'I’ve got Steve Rogers,' Tony repeated. 'DC was swarming with HYDRA agents trying to avoid Hill and the SHIELD agents who were really SHIELD; I didn’t want to risk bringing him to you. He’s here in the Tower. Barton’s been paged; he’s gonna track us down the deprogrammers who worked with Romanov when she defected. They left SHIELD a few years ago, and he’s gonna give them a hell of a vetting before he tells them why he’s come calling.'

'Holy shit,' Bucky gasped. Sam had been watching him carefully since he’d picked the phone up from between them. 'Tony found Steve,' he told Sam, and saying it out loud made it true. Sam’s face broke into a grin. Bucky grinned back and it honestly felt like the first time he’d really smiled in a year.

Bucky had never, not once in his life, felt this type of immense, potent, foolhardy relief. He had never been so God damned _thankful_.

'We need to go to the airport, actually,' Sam said, leaning over the passenger seat to tell the cabbie. 'I’m so sorry.' The ancient, Indian cabbie didn’t seem to mind, just smiled happily at Captain America and his friend, flicking a turn signal and swerving like he was still living in New Delhi. 'Tell him we’re coming,' Sam told Bucky, unnecessarily.

'We’re on our way,' Bucky said. 'I’ll call when I know what flight we’re on; can you have Happy pick us up? Also, SHIELD is gone, but I’m sure the computers at the airport don’t know that. Can you hack in and lift my travel freeze? Or call Kendall and see if she can do it for real in the hour or so it’ll take us to get to the airport?'

'Yeah, man, of course,' Tony promised. 'Look, Pepper’s with him now, Buck, and—he’s all messed up. He doesn’t know who he is or what’s happening to him. He can’t even piece together the last few hours. It’s all jumbled.'

'I’ll be there soon,' Bucky replied. 'He’s Steve; I’ll know what to do.' He didn’t know if that were true, but he didn’t know what else he could possibly say. He had always known Steve inside and out; this wasn’t really Steve, not now, and maybe not anymore.

'He’s still convinced he’s going to try to kill you,' Tony told him. 'Be careful when you get here, at least until he’s not insistent that he isn’t to be trusted.'

'Thanks,' Bucky said. He hung up. God, he had wondered why Steve would drag him out of the river if he was just going to abandon Bucky’s body on the shore. Maybe he had left because of that pain Bucky had seen on the helicarrier. The brainwashing had a physical hold on him. Maybe the closest he could get to resisting was to retreat.

'Tony Stark came thru, huh?' Sam said quietly. 'I thought we’d be spending the next two years tracking Rogers down.' Bucky laughed, a little hysterical. 'Hey, man, it’s gonna be OK.'

'Steve is safe,' Bucky replied. 'Of course it’s OK.'

^^^

'It’s good to see you again, Captain Barnes,' Happy called as Sam and Bucky moved thru the sliding doors of JFK Arrivals. Bucky grinned at Happy.

'Call me Bucky, man, seriously,' he said again. 'Happy Hogan, my friend, Sam Wilson. Sam, this is Happy. He’s head of Security for Stark Industries and occasionally he picks up crumbs at the airport.'

'Nice to meet you,' Sam said, shaking Happy’s offered hand. Happy said polite things back and opened the back door for Sam as Bucky gently yanked the handle of the front seat.

'Bucky is a ridiculous name,' Happy told Bucky. 'It sounds idiotic coming outta my mouth. Mister Stark is waiting with our guest in your apartment, Captain.'

'It’s short for Buchanan,' he pointed out while he enjoyed the feeling of going home to Steve. He hadn’t had that feeling since nineteen forty one. Bucky waited until Happy had rounded the car to climb in. The closed their doors nearly in sync.

'Buchanan is a ridiculous name too,' Happy said as he started their engine and pulled away from the curb.

'You know, Bucky is a pretty generic name, or, was, in my day,' he said. 'It was like being called Frank, or Jim.'

'OK, but your name is actually James,' Happy replied. 'So you could have gone by Jim. That is a normal name.'

'In my day, Bucky was a normal name too,' Bucky repeated. 'My dad’s name was Jim, so I couldn't—No, you know what? Happy? We’re not having this argument again. If you think Bucky’s so dumb, call me Jim; I don’t care. Just stop calling me _Captain Barnes_.'

'Too formal?' Happy guessed.

'Yes, but I’m not a soldier anymore,' he bragged. 'SHIELD’s collapsed, so I guess I won my lawsuit. Kendall will be pleased she doesn’t have to deal with me interrupting her anymore. She’ll be disappointed she didn’t get to really win the case, too. We were going to trial in June.'

'Also, your name is Happy,' Sam pointed out from behind them. 'I don’t think you have room to be chirping Bucky for being called something dumb.'

'Yeah!' Bucky agreed, having never thought about Happy’s name in comparison to his. 'Your name is Happy Hogan. You’re taking the piss out of me for being called Bucky when your name is _Happy Hogan_.'

'If my first name were James, you’d bet your ass I would stop going by Happy,' Happy grumbled. Bucky laughed.

'This is a nice car,' Sam mused absently. 'My car was totalled. I wonder if I can get a car this nice. Does Geico cover assassin-related destruction?'

'It was my fault it was destroyed; I’ll buy you a new car,' Bucky promised, because he could. Tony had extended him a kindness, getting him all the money from the media made about him and which would keep pouring in, but now that Bucky was done paying exorbitant legal fees, he hardly felt the need to hoard the six million dollars like a dragon. Sam’s car had been destroyed by the Winter Soldier, but Bucky was the asshole who put Sam in that situation to begin with. He still had the insurance card of the truck he’d stolen and then gotten blown up. He planned to replace that one too.

'How is he?' Bucky asked Happy before Sam could protest. 'Have you seen him?' Happy nodded.

'Tony tracked the radio transmitters implanted in his arm,' Happy said. Bucky winced at the information. 'He found him about eighteen miles down river from where you washed up. Kid was apparently real confused that Tony wasn’t a handler and that Tony’s name wasn’t Howard, but he agreed to come when Tony asked him if he wanted to go home.'

'Yeah,' Bucky agreed. 'But how is he?' Happy shook his head.

'Honestly, man?' Happy said. 'I don’t think he’s OK. Tony got them to the private airport in DC, flew to New York, and I picked them up there. He was still in his tacsuit and he was practically useless. He kept asking the same questions over and over.'

'What questions?' Sam pressed when Bucky’s throat hurt to much to talk. Bucky glanced thankfully over his shoulder at his friend, and Sam gave him a gentle, sad smile.

'Where am I, what is this, who are you,' Happy said. 'He kept insisting he didn’t want to complete the mission. It wasn’t until Pepper told him the mission had been dismissed that he stopped. He likes Pepper.'

'Of course he does,' Bucky sighed. Pepper was lovely. 'Pepper Potts is—'

'Yeah, I know,' Sam said. 'She runs the business side of Stark Industries because Stark gets too wrapped up in development. Are they—The news is always rude about the fact she was his secretary and then became his girlfriend.'

'I don’t know about her being a secretary,' Bucky admitted, looking at Happy. He supposed he’d never asked how the two had met; he’d just seen them look at each other like two robins in love and respected Pepper as a businessman from the first time he’d overheard her on a work call. She was daring and strong, a little ruthless, and he imagined if she had ever been a secretary for Tony, she had run every aspect of his life and kept the whirlwind of his mind closer to organized than anyone else could. 'But yeah, they’re very much in love. It’s quite beautiful.'

'You describe things in the weirdest ways,' Sam murmured. 'They’re not together; they’re in love.'

'They are,' Bucky said, twisting to glare at Sam.

'It is beautiful,' Happy put in. 'Miss Potts was his personal assistant for a long time, and then he promoted her when he thought he was dying from metal poisoning from the arc reactor he had in his chest. I’m not privy to how the relationship actually started, but Pepper isn’t one to have taken advantage or have been taken advantage of.'

'And Steve?' Bucky asked. Happy shrugged as he pulled off the expressway.

'Yeah, she told him the mission was finished, that he didn’t have to kill you, and he believed her,' Happy said. 'The other questions keep coming, but he always remembers Pepper. Hasn’t asked her who she is. He keeps asking Tony, keeps calling him Howard. Did Rogers know Howard?'

'Yeah, Howard was the tech provider for the Commandos, most of the SSR, to be frank,' Bucky said. 'He was a good man. He was our friend.' The image of Howard’s car crash leapt to his mind. If HYDRA used the Winter Soldier for its biggest, most important dirty work, and if Howard had been taken out for resisting, Steve had been the one to kill him. Tony looked a lot like his ma, mostly Howard in his colouring and in his eyes, but Bucky hated the idea that Steve was literally being shadowed by the friend he’d been forced to kill.

'How are we dealing with this?' Sam asked. 'People are going to want to prosecute him for the assassinations he carried out.'

'Steve is not a villain,' Bucky snapped. 'He’s the world’s longest-serving prisoner of war. You didn’t see him. He resisted the programming because I told him the helicarriers were gonna kill a bunch of innocent people. He resisted the programming because he’s a good man, and I’ll be damned if anyone tries to suggest otherwise.'

'I’m sure you’re right,' Sam said, 'but people are gonna want justice.'

'I want justice for Steve too,' Bucky said. 'But letting me save those people caused him a lot of pain. I can’t begin to imagine what HYDRA had to do to get Steve to hurt like that. None of this is his fault.'

'It’s probably mine,' he added, after a tense silence. It hurt to admit it, but it was the truth. This was his fault and he could feel that fault like a fire in his floating ribs, making it a little hard to get a good breath in. Crazily, he wondered if this was what Steve’s asthma felt like: something squeezing your bones and shutting down your lungs. 'He fell off the train and I didn’t even try to find him. I let HYDRA take him.'

'You thought he was dead,' Sam pointed out. Happy called out to JARVIS and the gate to the parking garage lifted. Bucky sighed, his heart clenching in his chest to match his stuttered breathing.

'That’s not an excuse.'

^^^

'Master Hogan has arrived with Captain Barnes and his guest,' JARVIS chimed. Steve looked up at the ceiling and around, like Bucky used to when JARVIS spoke, searching for a visible speaker or a PA box. The familiar gesture made Tony crack a small smile, even feeling as strung out as he did. 'They are on their way up to Master Barnes’s apartment.'

'Thanks, J,' Tony said. He turned from the bar—from the dry Coke he had poured himself—and looked at his girlfriend and a Soviet-era assassin, sitting on the couch together. Pepper had been a fucking godsend, handling Steve’s confused, shattering programming as well as she had handled every bit of insanity Tony brought home to her. She had helped Steve out of his tacsuit, had washed the filth of the Potomac from his hair, had tucked him into the softest clothes she owned. Steve looked unbelievably small and human in Pepper’s black sweats and a long-sleeve grey shirt. They were too big on him, but every other piece of clothing in the Tower would be bigger. The sleeve fell over his metal hand, just the tips of his fingers hanging out.

'Bucky,' Steve said, without aim or cause. He had blurted the name, like, four dozen times over the past ten hours, rarely with a reason, like he was trying out the sounds. Tony wondered why. Steve wasn’t up to answering questions right now, and talking to him like a computer got clearer answers sometimes, but pressing him on that just had Steve closing his eyes and trying to shake something out of his head.

'It’s all right,' Pepper promised in reply, stroking a hand over Steve’s shaggy, drying hair. Steve leaned into her touch. 'You aren’t going to hurt him, I promise.' Tony did think that Steve had tripped enough of the proverbial wires of his programming to not be a threat, just uncoordinated and panicked, but Mark XLIII was hanging out in Bucky’s kitchen on alert mode just in case. JARVIS would engage on their behalf if Steve fell prey to the compulsions someone else had put in his head. 'You’re shaking,' Pepper added. 'Are you cold?'

'Temperature: no concern,' Steve said, which wasn’t an answer. 'Other system analysis required,' he added, which was probably code for a broken line of his programming. Tony understood that Steve had been brainwashed, and apparently they’d taught him to request maintenance when that brainwashing started to slip. His stomach wrenched at that. Pepper looked over the couch at Tony and sighed. She looked so sad. Tony hated that.

He wished he could have left Pepper out of this, taken Steve to any other building JARVIS ran and could keep secure if Steve’s programming reengaged or if HYDRA came to try to collect him, but Tony had to make this right. He couldn’t do it alone; he couldn’t do it without her. He needed Pepper, unfairly; she had to look sad like this because he’d need her when he took his turn to break down. The doors slid open and Bucky and the black man who’d been in DC with him came in. Romanov wasn’t with them, which Tony had somehow expected.

'It’s my favourite old man,' Tony joked weakly, leaving his Coke on the bar as he crossed to the foyer. Bucky smiled tiredly and hugged him, not mentioning the way Tony squeezed too hard. Maybe he was so strong he didn’t even realize Tony was hugging him with all he had. Jesus, he’d told Bucky to pull it together when Bucky had thought he had been killed. He didn’t realize Bucky had felt like this. He hadn’t known how fucking awful it felt.

'Thank you,' Bucky said into Tony’s shoulder. 'Thank you for finding him.'

'Don’t thank me,' Tony said, letting him go. 'I’ll explain why in a bit.' Bucky didn’t push.

'This is Sam Wilson,' he said instead, introducing the black man. 'He’s been a blessing the whole time I’ve been in DC.'

'Is this the VA group leader you told me about?' Pepper called from the couch. Bucky looked over, and from the exhausted smile, he just noticed Steve. He left the foyer, rounding the couch.

'Yeah, the very same,' Sam agreed, shaking Tony’s hand. 'It’s nice to meet you, Mister Stark.'

'Tony,' Tony corrected. 'That’s Pepper. Anybody who saves the Capsicle’s ass when I’m not around gets first-name privileges.'

'That goes twice for me,' Pepper agreed. Sam smiled at them.

'Hey, Steve,' Bucky said gently, sitting on the coffee table in front of him. 'You’re home, matoki. It’s so good to have you home.'

'Home,' Steve repeated. 'There are windows,' he added looking over at them. Bucky grinned at him. Tony nodded Sam further into the home and went to get his drink.

'Y’mind if I have a beer?' Sam asked, following Tony to the bar. 'It’s been a hell of a day.' It was technically early morning, but he imagined that the VA worker had been going fast and hard for hours, maybe days, following Bucky thru this disaster. It was beer o’clock somewhere; that was for damn sure.

'Fridge below the cappuccino machine,' Tony said by way of answer, and Sam went behind the bar to help himself.

'Yeah, I remember your last room in Brooklyn had that stupid dumbbell opening. It was always dark in there,' Bucky agreed. 'Wait ’til you see the skyline at night. It’s like nothing we ever saw.' Steve made a little noise then, pressing the pad of his flesh hand between his eyes as he squeezed them shut. His fingers shook, uncontrollably. Pepper lay a soothing hand on Steve’s narrow back. Steve whimpered.

'He’s been in a lot of pain,' Pepper told Bucky, reaching out a hand to stop him when he tried to touch and comfort Steve. 'I don’t know how to fix it.'

'Neither do I,' Bucky admitted, letting Pepper stop him with hesitation. 'I sent Natasha to help Clint find someone who does.'

'The mission—' Steve gasped, and Pepper moved closer to the tiny blond she’d taken as her charge. 'The asset has orders.'

'Maybe you should give us some space for a couple minutes,' she said to Bucky, hardly a suggestion. Bucky’s smile faded and he paled, but he nodded. He stood, tucking his hands in his pockets. He looked torn as he lingered, so Tony called out.

'Cap, come here for a sec,' Tony said, crossing the the balcony. Sam followed them thru the glass doors.

'Fuck,' Bucky cursed once they were out there. 'I got so wrapped up in the idea that you’d found him that I kind of forgot it’s not really him, not now.'

'He’s kind of a mess,' Tony agreed. 'Do you think the deprogrammers the Wonder Twins will come here with will be able to fix him?'

'I think they’ll be able to fix the pain,' Bucky said. 'Stopping the programme HYDRA gave him from compelling him is only half the battle, I guess.' He leaned his hips back against the railing, staring into the living room and Pepper’s attempts to soothe and calm Steve. Tony stared out over the city. 'Do you have your cigarettes?' Bucky asked no one in particular.

'Yeah,' Sam agreed. 'You want one?'

'Please,' Bucky said, taking the cigarette and lighter Sam offered. Sam took the lighter back and lit his own. He held the pack of menthols out to Tony, who politely declined.

'Didn’t know you smoked,' Tony said, looking down to watch cars. None stopped in front of the Tower. JARVIS was on Alert Mode Seven anyway; he didn’t need to keep his own eye out.

'I was born in nineteen eighteen,' Bucky sighed. 'Everyone smoked.' He blew out a long column, looking down at the cigarette in his hand. 'Stevie had these asthma cigarettes, a little pricey but cheaper than the better medicines. Turns out now inhaling smoke to stop an asthma attack was a bad idea, but they also thought it was all in his head back then. The menthol reminds me of the way those stupid things smelled. I used to hate menthols, used to smoke Luckies when I had the extra dollar.'

'What a crazy world,' Sam sighed. He slouched on the patio couch, kicking his feet up to the railing. The little table next to him held an empty coffee mug Bucky must’ve left out here months ago. Sam ashed into it instead of onto the lovely tile of the balcony. Bucky flicked his own ashes into open air, letting them drift away on the gentle morning’s wind.

'Why shouldn’t I thank you for finding him?' Bucky asked, looking over at Tony. 'I couldn’t have caught up to him on foot, not with this asshole insisting I go to the hospital—'

'It was the second time you nearly drowned; pardon me for being concerned,' Sam grumbled. 'Do you even know how to swim?'

'Apparently not,' Bucky said evasively. 'Tony,' he prompted. 'How did you find him? Why did you bring him here? Why shouldn’t I thank you for that? It’s wonderful that he’s something close to safe. Fuck, it’s a miracle and a blessing.'

'I was watching the news, when J was building my suit,' he began. Bucky, for all he had pressed for answers, interrupted.

'I’m sorry I sent you an SOS signal when you didn’t have any suits,' he cut in. 'That was unfair of me, to put that on you. I wouldn’t have—'

'I didn’t really tell you I was out of commission,' Tony said, stopping him. 'You had every right to assume I was prepared. I’m the one who read your subpoena. I should’ve known full well you couldn’t leave DC.'

'Well, we’re even, then,' Bucky said. Tony shook his head.

'I don’t think so,' he replied. 'I saw the Winter Soldier’s metal arm and it’s pretty distinctive. I didn’t see SHIELD arrest him; I saw them follow their injured operative protocols and then place you three under arrest. They would have shot you in the head if the YWB chopper hadn’t been there. I asked JARVIS to search the SHIELD files from the hack for an operative with such an arm.'

'What did he find?' Bucky asked. Tony shook his head.

'Nothing in the SHIELD files we stole,' he admitted. 'But J found schematics for the arm, for a psychotropic-drug-releasing implant, and for improvements to a cryogenic chamber in Stark archives.' Bucky frowned, turning away from the living room window to stare at Tony.

'I beg your fucking pardon,' he said. Tony nodded, avoiding the gaze.

'My dad knew about Steve,' Tony said simply. He shrugged. 'The notes on the schematics: there’s no doubt that he didn’t know who the equipment was for. I don’t know if he knew the extent of what HYDRA was doing with him or to him, but he knew that they had Rogers and he helped them torture him. He helped them store him in ice like a fucking frozen pizza.'

'Holy shit,' Bucky said, rubbing his mouth and turning away. He lifted his cigarette and dragged hard.

'The frequencies for the radio trackers were right there,' Tony said. 'I stopped Stark Industries from manufacturing munitions and weapons because I had to try to fix my mistakes, fix the terror my weapons brought to the world. A lot of that was started by my dad, during World War Two. I figured I had to—I had to make this right too. I had to try.'

'So, I tracked him,' Tony said. 'He thought I was a HYDRA handler, because he recognized my dad in me, like you do. He would have surrendered like his programming demanded, but I told him I wasn’t gonna take him home without his permission.'

'He gave it,' Bucky guessed. 'That’s good.'

'I think there are certain words that really trigger stuff for him,' Tony said. 'He reacted when I told him he was free, when I said your name, when I asked him if he wanted to go home.'

'Most important three things: freedom, lovers, and home,' Sam mused. 'I wonder how hard HYDRA had to work to break those things away.'

'Lovers?' Tony echoed, unscandalized. He wondered anew at the way Steve kept trying to make Bucky’s name sound familiar to himself, repeating it over and over.

'Shit, sorry,' Sam said to Bucky. Tony looked at his friend. Bucky was staring out over the daytime skyline, clearly trying to absorb the information Tony had given him and failing. 'I think I outed you.'

'It’s fine; it’s just Tony,' Bucky said. 'Yeah,' he said to Tony. 'That man is the love of my life.' He gestured vaguely at Pepper and Steve.

'Why did you never mention that before?' Tony asked. Bucky laughed, but it sounded like shattered glass and it was joyless.

'You ever heard of a blue ticket?' Bucky asked. Tony shook his head. Bucky looked away. 'Before we went to war, getting found out woulda gotten us evicted or arrested or both, or worse.  My own ma woulda spat on my grave if she’d known, and I was her only boy, her favourite. We had to lie during our exams to even get into the Army, and if we’d been found out, we would gotten blue tickets and sent home.'

'Free discharge,' Tony put in, because he didn’t understand.

'No,' Sam corrected, firmly. 'God, no. No, they would have been sent home labelled as sickos and perverts, lost every single vet benefit, their ranks, honours, and probably never woulda found solid jobs ever again. Probably would have had a hell of a time finding places to live, to work, anything.'

'We would have lost everything, maybe even each other. It’s hard to open up about that kinda secret. Besides, I had a broken heart,' Bucky said. 'He was dead. It was hard enough living with it, let alone showing it to people. I thought I got him killed during the war but instead I didn’t look for him and let HYDRA take him.'

'That’s not your fault,' Sam said. 'Bucky, if you’d rushed off to find Steve—Steve’s _body_ , like everyone told you you would, no one else could have made it onto the Valkyrie. How many cities would’ve been lost? How many lives? Don’t torture yourself for leaving what you thought was a corpse to save millions of civilians.'

'Yeah,' Tony agreed. 'Sam’s right. Fuck, Bucky, I can’t imagine—If something like this had happened to Pepper—' He broke off, shaking his head. He hadn’t known Bucky had been in love with his best friend; Pepper had told him Bucky had been in love in his day, but he’d assumed it was with Peggy Carter, the woman he visited every other day when he was in DC. When he had still lived in New York, Tony had heard Bucky coo at her on the phone on the few days he’d called her hospice and found her lucid. It hadn’t occurred to him that Bucky might be anything but straight; he hadn’t considered the love lost might have been the same death Bucky blamed himself for more than any other.

'Steve made the same decision you did,' Sam added. 'He resisted the orders and failed his mission because you told him the same innocent people were gonna die. He gave up literally the only thing bouncing around in his brain to save those people. You did just what he would’ve done. You can’t blame yourself for that. It’s idiotic.'

'Tony, there’s something else,' Bucky said, by way of ignoring Sam’s comfort and stewing in his grief and guilt. Tony nodded him on. 'HYDRA murdered your parents,' Bucky told him, not cushioning it at all. Tony blinked and shook his head.

'No,' he said, looking away. 'No, they died in a car crash.'

'No,' Bucky corrected. 'Howard—Before you told me about the arm, the chamber, I thought he had found out HYDRA was inside SHIELD. I thought he tried to stop them and HYDRA sent the Winter Soldier out to kill him. Now, I don’t know what made them kill him, but they arranged his death.'

'No,' Tony said again. 'It was an accident.'

'Tony, man, I’m so sorry,' Bucky said, and that empathetic phrase made Tony realize it was true. 'I’m so God damned sorry. You didn’t deserve to be orphaned so fucking young. I took out the Red Skull and I thought I’d taken out all of HYDRA. If things had gone my way, you wouldn’t have lost your family and I’m so, so sorry that you did.'

'I thought you said Steve and Howard were friends,' Sam said softly from behind them. 'HYDRA wiped Steve enough that he killed his _friend_?' Bucky nodded.

'They were friends,' Bucky agreed. Tony felt sick. 'Howard was _our_ friend; he was a good man and I don’t understand what went wrong.' Bucky placed a hand on Tony’s shoulder. 'I don’t understand what made him do this, and I don’t understand what made him hard on you. I just don’t know.'

'My father built that arm and that chamber for his friend?' Tony demanded, pulling away from Bucky. Bucky let him go, smoking emphatically to avoid Tony’s eyes. 'He designed an implant to fix Rogers' hearing that had the added benefit of delivering mind control drugs directly into his brain, when Rogers was his goddamn _friend_?'

'I’m sorry,' Bucky said uselessly. 'I don’t understand it either. I would call you a liar if you had ever, even once, given me a reason to think you were less than honest with me. I can’t believe it myself.'

'Jesus,' Tony cursed, leaning his elbows on the railing and almost doubling over. 'Fucking hell.'

'Don’t blame Steve for your parents' murders,' Bucky begged, even if that were the last thing on Tony’s mind. 'He can’t take on more trauma than he’s already got, and if Steve murdered Howard, he really, truly couldn’t have had any choice. Steve—the _real_ Steve—he couldn’t have done that. You want to blame someone: blame HYDRA or blame me.'

'No, even if I did—Steve might have killed my father, but my father knew full well what they were doing to him,' Tony said. 'What he was doing to him. I can’t—It—We’d be even, Steve and I. As for my mom, that was Dad’s fault. He had to know people who were willing to torture Steve like that would—He’s the one who put her at risk.'

'I’m so sorry,' Bucky said again.

'I’ve been with Steve for the last ten, twelve hours,' Tony said. 'He’s not even sure where he is, let alone—I couldn’t blame him for this. He doesn’t know. He’s barely conscious—sentient, I mean. He’s—God, Bucky, I just don’t know.'

'Fuck,' Bucky said. He tossed his butt into the mug Sam had left his inside. Tony made a note to get a real ashtray out here for these assholes. 'Did you read that file from Rumlow I sent you?'

'Yeah,' Tony agreed. 'HYDRA would have loved to have taken you and turned you into the same weapon they turned him into. I’m glad they didn’t get that chance.'

'What?' Sam questioned, still slouched on the patio couch. 'What the fuck?'

'About a year ago,' Bucky began, 'I read a report that ended with the suggestion I be corrected so I could join the asset. Apparently holding back when sparring with a normal human—not _snapping_ that fucker in two—was a mistake. Rumlow—the head of the STRIKE team that arrested us,' he explained for Sam’s benefit. 'He thought it would take them a year and a half to get me ready to work with what he described simply as the asset. Apparently it took them nearly four years of neurosurgery and brainwashing to prepare Steve; they had to keep cutting into him, keep correcting him surgically, to keep him weaponized. They froze him so his brain wouldn’t heal.' Tony honestly thought he might throw up. 'I bet they corrected right before he killed Howard. Steve trying to kill me was too close to the Fury op; I think they—I don’t think they planned to have him kill me. I was on the target list of Insight. I think they made a mistake, trusted the programming too much, and sure enough, he broke it.'

'Holy shit,' Sam said quietly. Bucky nodded, sighing heavily.

'I had JARVIS search the files for the asset at the time but it’s obviously above a level six clearance, or stored far from what Fury could access; we had nothing on Steve then,' Bucky said. 'I should have been suspicious when we didn’t even have Steve’s enlistment files, nothing from his time in the SSR as a Commando. It was like they’d hidden every part of him to stop someone from finding out.'

'We did find out. We have everything now,' Sam told him. 'Nat dumped all of SHIELD’s information online.'

'We have Steve now,' Bucky replied. 'I know I should care about the info dump, and I know I should be thinking about how to actually, really, truly wipe HYDRA out, but all I can think about is Steve.' Tony watched his friend, the worry on his face Tony had never seen before. He imagined unwillingly something like this happening to Pepper; an image of Pepper strapped to a table and crying while his father traced blueprints at a desk behind her, unconcerned, popped unbidden into his mind. It made him want to throw up. 'Do you think I can go back in?' Bucky asked, chewing his lip.

Tony turned, looking at Pepper and Steve. She felt his gaze on them and waved slightly. God, he loved that woman. He couldn’t imagine loving her and losing her and then finding her like Bucky had found Steve. He couldn’t imagine the pain he would feel. He felt horrible watching her fret over a brainwashed prisoner of war; he had to think having it the other way around would kill him.

'Yeah,' Tony said. 'Let’s go.'

^^^

‘You’re sure?’ Pepper asked, lingering at the door. Steve was still on the couch where she’d left him. Bucky looked over at him, sighing. ‘I can stay.’ Bucky shook his head, watching Steve sit still and passive.

‘You’ve been with him for a full day,’ Bucky said. ‘I’ll get him to rest. You need your rest too.’

‘Bucky, what if he loses control?’ Pepper asked. She crossed her arms, worried. Tony placed his hand on her shoulder, squeezing comfortingly. ‘What if something—’

‘The suit is on sentry in the kitchen,’ Tony said. ‘So is JARVIS. He'll wake us if we're needed. Besides, I think the asset is gone. Bucky and Romanov are the only targets who have ever made it past the requisite time for the mission.’

‘Fury did,’ Bucky reminded him. ‘We’re keeping the fact he’s alive a secret for now, but that means the last three targets made it out alive. That’s every target we know of this year,’ he joked, looking back at Pepper, bumping her arm gently. ‘It’s Steve. I know he’s not all together, not now, but he’s at least not the asset. Steve has never hurt me, not ever.’ Even when they fought, Steve avoided the worst of the things he could have said to cut Bucky to ribbons. Bucky hadn't always had the same control. He had said some horrid things over the years; Steve had only lashed out at Bucky's weak spots about Steve himself, at the parts that might make him stumble or doubt, not at the parts that would make Bucky bleed out onto the floor and die. Steve had never believed in cruelty. It made it harder to imagine what had happened to him to turn him into the Winter Soldier.

‘Bucky, I don’t know if he is Steve,’ Pepper said, concerned. ‘And no matter how much you might love someone, they might still hurt you.' She moved one of her hands, touching Tony’s on her shoulder. ‘Even if they don’t mean to, even if you don’t expect it.’

‘This is Steve,’ Bucky said again, a pointless surety in his bones. ‘I just—It’s not gonna be a problem. I believe in him. I know him, and he’s a mess right now, but I believe in him. Sam’s here too.’

‘Sam’s passed out in the second bedroom,’ Tony pointed out.

‘He’ll step up if I need him,’ Bucky agreed. Tony nodded, and shrugged at Pepper. She sighed. She watched Tony’s face intently and Tony gave her a look Bucky couldn’t interpret.

‘OK,’ Pepper said after a long pause. She nodded, hesitating. ‘OK. We’ll see you in the morning.’ She pulled from Tony and kissed Buck's cheek and forced him into a hug.

‘Sleep well, guys,’ he ordered. Tony winked at him as he hauled an arm around his girlfriend. He waved over his shoulder as they made their way out, and Bucky resented the sliding door as he wished he could physically mark their departure. He turned, looking at Steve.

Steve had been looking at him, but snapped his eyes away when Bucky looked over, avoiding eye contact like he had all night. It twisted something inside Bucky, sharp and delicate and painful. He crossed the living room and made his way down the two steps to the couch. He sat next to Steve, a safe distance away, flinging an arm along the back of the couch.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘You tired?’

‘Tired?’ Steve repeated to the corner of the coffee table. His hair fell in a curtain, clean from Pepper’s care taking, blocking most of Bucky’s view. His hands were curled on his lap, moving aimlessly and slightly as Steve battled programming and struggled to stay still and calm. It hurt to watch, but Bucky imagined Steve hurt more.

‘Yeah, tired,’ Bucky said. ‘Do you want to sleep? You’ve been awake for a very long time.’ Steve didn’t move. Steve didn’t reply. ‘Hey,’ Bucky called. ‘Stevie, you OK?’

‘The asset is operational,’ Steve replied, rote and automatic. Bucky hid a wince at that. ‘Pepper said the mission has finished.’

‘It is,’ Bucky promised. ‘I wouldn’t be here if it weren't.’

‘You would run,’ Steve guessed. 'Targets run when they have a chance.'

‘Yeah, Steve,’ he agreed unsteadily. ‘If I didn’t trust you, I would run.’

‘Trust,’ Steve echoed. ‘Bucky.’

‘Yeah?’ Bucky prompted, and Steve said nothing. Bucky could see him frowning, could see him thinking, could hear servomotors hum in his arm. ‘Let’s get you to bed, man, come on.’ He bumped the backs of his fingers against Steve’s metal wrist, leaning forward to do so.

‘Bed?’ Steve asked. He was frowning at the place Bucky had touched, as if curious what the contact had been. Bucky wondered who had touched him in the last seventy years without the aim to hurt him. He imagined very few people, if anyone, had done anything honest to him in decades. Bucky hated that. He had had a hard enough time with dishonesty as an autonomous being, waking up in the twenty first century. He couldn’t imagine what Steve had went thru.

The files were all online, thanks to Nat. He could find out. He didn’t know if he should read them, if he should just let Tony evaluate them for him. It felt like a breach of privacy, to read clinical, sterile language about the horrors of what had happened to Steve. He wanted to know like a burn under his skin, but he also couldn’t shake the feeling that Steve had spent nearly the last century as an object, as a pawn. Shouldn’t Bucky only know what Steve wanted him to know, what Steve decided to tell him when he was well enough to decide things? Shouldn’t he restrain himself, to protect Steve? To give him the autonomy and privacy that had been positively stolen from him?

'Yeah, bed: a place where people sleep,' Bucky explained.

'Sleep,' Steve repeated.

'Rest,' Bucky replied. 'You close your eyes, lie down, dream, recharge. I imagine you haven't slept in a very long time.'

'The asset does not know how,' Steve admitted. He looked up suddenly, meeting Bucky's eyes. 'I remember we slept.'

'Yes, we did,' Bucky promised. Steve’s eyes drifted away. 'A lot of times, we slept. Come on,' he prompted, standing. He reached out a hand, offering it to Steve. 'I'll tuck you in.'

'Will you stay?' Steve asked, watching his hand. Bucky wondered if Steve was still waiting punishment, if he should broadcast his movements better and make them smaller, slower, nonthreatening.

'While you sleep?' Bucky clarified. 'You bet your ass. I'll keep watch. I'll keep you safe, OK? There’s no threat here, no HYDRA, no handlers.' Steve shook his head, his metal hand clenching into a fist and his flesh hand following suit a moment later. Servomotors whined.

'No—the handlers will come,' Steve insisted. 'They always come. The asset has failed and failure will be punished.'

'No one is going to punish you,' Bucky cut in. 'You didn’t fail, all right? You resisted the programming and you never have to go back.'

'Failure has never happened before,' Steve said. He didn’t seem to hear Bucky, hear the assurances. 'But I remember—they never came when we slept. They came when the asset was alone, when it was cold. The target is warm.' Bucky hesitated, unsure. It felt dirty, almost, to spend the night with Steve that way, to agree to share a bed with Steve when he was so shattered. 'The asset was always alone when they came. The target—The asset remembers you.' Bucky stared at Steve, at the blank look in his eyes and the terror in the set of his mouth. 'System recalibration required,' Steve added quietly, closing his eyes against pain in his head. It twisted at Bucky too, probably less agonizing but just as sharply. 'Maintenance is _required_.'

'The handlers won't come here,' Bucky promised instead. 'You should get some rest, sleep, and I should—I should keep watch.' Steve shook his head. 'You'll be safe if I'm keeping watch. You’ll be safe here in the Tower.'

'You should sleep,' Steve corrected, stubborn like he had been when he was himself. 'They came after, when you weren’t sleeping, and recalibrated. System recalibration—'

'If I promise I'll sleep,' Bucky began, 'will you come let me tuck you in?' Steve nodded. He reached out and took Bucky's hand in his metal palm. The metal was cold, which Bucky had for some reason not expected. Bucky gave a little tug and Steve stumbled to his feet. 'Come on,' he said again. He tried to release Steve's hand but Steve held fast.

'I remember,' he said. 'Safe. Bucky.'

'Yeah,' Bucky promised. 'You're safe.'

He looked at the huge bed in the master bedroom (what a concept). He wondered if this was crossing a line, somehow, giving Steve this small, physical comfort. He felt unsure. He had never felt unsure about touching Steve before, not even at the height of his panic when he realised he might love a man the way the Bible and his parents and everyone said he shouldn’t. He had never doubted Steve's ability to stand up for himself—his ability to consent—before, not even when Steve had first been back from Azzano. He had worried about a lot of things, but not that. Now he felt worried. He looked down at Steve.

Steve was staring up at him, waiting in the doorway. At Bucky’s side, he seemed small, looking up at him. Bucky swallowed nervously. Steve eyed the gesture but didn't question him.

'I know you,' Steve said, his voice soft, hushed, like he was afraid the non-existent neighbours would hear.

'I know you too,' Bucky replied, just as softly. 'You’re a good man and you need sleep.'

'Bucky,' Steve said aimlessly, looking away. His face was blank, unreadable. He looked at the bed and Bucky sighed before tugging him forward. 'Location is not recognized.'

'You're home,' Bucky said.

 

'Home,' Steve repeated. The knowledge did not seem to put him at ease.

 

'Get in,' Bucky told him after he pulled his hand away to pull the blankets back. These sheets and the comforter were softer and warmer than anything Steve had ever been able to afford; after decades of spending impossibly long nights in a cryochamber, Bucky had to imagine the soft might be overwhelming. It had been for him when he first came to the Tower. All of the opulence of Tony’s home, plus the modern conveniences of the time, had overwhelmed him too. Steve hesitated.

'Is this storage?' he asked. 'The asset is stored in a cryochamber. People sleep in beds.'

'You're a person,' Bucky reminded Steve. 'We're both people. People aren’t stored; they sleep and they sleep in beds.'

'I remember,' Steve told him, unhelpful and vague. He stared at the edge of the bed.

'This is your bed,' Bucky told him, hesitant. He didn’t know what was going on in Steve’s head, and it had been a very long time since he hadn’t known exactly what Steve was thinking. He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever get to the point of knowing Steve like that again. 'Come on; I’ll tuck you in.' Steve looked at the blankets like they might swallow him up as the sea swallowed sinking ships and dying whales. 'It's safe,' Bucky promised. Steve climbed in. He lay slowly, curled on his side, placing his head on the pillow. Once Bucky had pulled the blankets back up around him, warm and secure, he sat sat on the edge of the bed. Steve peeked out from behind his hair, and Bucky couldn't have stopped himself from tucking the blond strands behind Steve's ear if someone had offered him the Presidency and all of Tony's money and wits.

'You stay,' Steve said, as close to an assertive statement as Bucky had heard from him over the past day. 'I remember,' he said insistently, and he grabbed Bucky's collar with his flesh hand. He tugged, and Bucky lost balance against Steve's strength, which he hadn't expected would be used to manhandle him into the bed. Steve wiggled, making room for Bucky at his left side.

'All right,' Bucky chuckled. 'I'm staying. I'm staying.' He wiggled himself, tugging the comforter over him. He usually slept in boxers and a tee shirt, not a tee shirt and sweatpants, but he was certainly not going to get half-naked with someone who barely knew where they were. It was bad enough he agreed to stay the night. It felt like taking advantage, even if Steve was terrified and clearly—in this moment at least—felt better with Bucky there.

Steve watched him from the middle of the bed, staring. When Bucky turned his head where he lay on his back, Steve's eyes fell away to Bucky's shoulder. His hand, soft and warm and gentle, was pressed suddenly against Bucky's deltoid, like a hesitant assurance that Bucky was really there. His palm was dwarfed by Bucky’s own inhuman strength. 'I’m here,' Bucky promised. 'You're safe. You're free.'

'Free,' Steve whispered. Bucky nodded.

'Yeah,' Bucky agreed. 'Hell of a thing, ain't it?'

'Important,' Steve said, but it sounded like a guess. Bucky nodded, watching Steve as he winced at something internal, making the smallest noise of discomfort.

'Yeah, freedom is important,' Bucky agreed. 'You’re important too, you know.'

'To you?' Steve guessed, still grimacing.

'To me,' Bucky allowed, 'but also because you’re a person. You matter.' Steve sighed. His breath whistled just a bit and a wave of fucking nostalgia rushed over Bucky and threatened to drown him all over again. His eyes prickled and he looked up at the ceiling, in vain, to disguise the dampness licking at his lashes. Steve tapped Bucky's shoulder twice with the flat of his palm. The metal arm whined quietly, insistently. Bucky lifted his arm and Steve tucked under it, like he used to, a hundred lifetimes ago.

'I remember,' he said, fisting his human hand in the soft cotton of Bucky’s shirt, right over his heart. Bucky was unafraid, for all a few days ago Steve might have killed him, killed Nat, killed Fury, stopped Bucky from preventing the destruction of liberty and free will for the world. None of it had happened; Steve had broken thru his own lack of free will to save everyone else's. Steve pressed closer, tucking his head in the crook of Bucky’s neck and shoulder.

That at least felt right.

^^^

Steve had been calm, weirdly calm, about lying back on a surgical table for medical staff at the deprogramming unit to examine and check on him. Bucky watched from the observation room, which he'd tried to get Steve's permission to do. Steve hadn't seemed to understand what he had been asking, so Bucky stood uncomfortably behind the glass anyway.

Bruce opened the door to the observation room and knocked on the door frame. Bucky glanced over; he nodded Bruce in. It was odd how suddenly this new team began treating him as a captain rather than another operative after the Battle of New York. Even now, after SHIELD's collapse, the team deferred to him. It was odd. It reminded him of home.

'How's he dealing with the examination?' Bruce asked, peering into the room.

'He's passive,' Bucky said. He wasn't willing to say Steve was comfortable, or that he wasn't afraid, but he was certainly passive. He'd let the portable CT and MRI scanners encircle his head and shoulders, let them Xray his entire frame and take blood. Steve had no resistance; he didn’t even track the movement of needles and scanners around him. It worried Bucky. Perhaps that passivity, that victimization would help; he wasn't naïve. He knew there would be a significant portion of the American public—of the world—that would want Steve's blood and head for what the Winter Soldier's handlers had done. Perhaps seeing him as a victim, as a prisoner, seeing him sick and broken would spare him from facing the misplaced sword of Justice. He wasn't above manipulating this terrible twenty-four hour news cycle to protect someone who had been vulnerable for so long.

He’d need Pepper’s help with that, but he would do almost anything to protect Steve from what blood the people would want as payment.

'Wow,' Bruce said quietly, a tablet lighting up with the scans the doctor and nurse had taken. Bucky glanced at the blue light.

'What?' Bucky asked.

'Look at this,' Bruce said, flicking up a fMRI scan. 'Look at what they've done to his brain. They must have cauterized his memory and emotional centres a dozen times if they did it once. Look at this scarring.' Bruce passed the tip of a pen along the scan, showing Bucky nearly half a century of torture. Bucky didn’t understand the scan’s colours and shadows—it barely looked like what he thought of as a brain—but he understood what Bruce was telling him well enough to start nausea rioting in his stomach. 'On the other hand, look at this new cell growth,' Bruce added, showing Bucky another section of the scan. 'I bet they kept him in cryo because if they didn't, the physical measures they had to take to weaponize him would heal over. I wonder how much he'll be able to heal, what long-term damage will remain.'

'I'm scared,' Bucky admitted after a long silence, watching the nurse. She touched Steve's flesh shoulder and he sat up for her, staring away and despondent. He was unselfconsciously semi-nude, wearing only a set of boxers. He made no effort to preserve his modesty and gave a more disturbing lack of effort to tracking the movements of the doctor or nurse, both swarming with equipment and needles.

'Scared?' Bruce echoed. Bucky nodded, watching Steve's blank face as a doctor prodded at his metal arm, using gentle hands to test the range of motion of his mechanical wrist. The plates clicked and shifted; they caught at the light delicately.

'I'm scared that—' Bucky halted, unsure what he was really scared of. He took a deep breath and forced himself to articulate. Tony said he always felt better after talking to Bruce; Bucky hoped his adage would hold true. 'I’m scared there's no part of him left. It's not quite that—I'm scared that the weapon won't let him go.'

'I think the weapon is already gone,' Bruce said. 'You're alive. No other target has lasted more than thirty two hours after his handlers pointed him in their direction, according to the files I looked at. Even Fury lasted about ten.' Bucky didn’t correct him, not then; the CIA deprogrammers might have come with Clint’s stamp of approval, but Bucky didn’t trust anywhere but Stark Tower not to be bugged nowadays. 'But he's completely given up on killing you; he's not a weapon anymore.'

'Do you think—' Bucky stopped again.

'I think he won't be the same man you knew,' Bruce said, somehow understanding. 'I think you know that. He can recover. It might take his whole life, but he's lucky. He's made it this far.' Bucky looked away from Steve's passivity to Bruce.

He looked almost nauseated, for all his comforting words, like seeing the person behind the Soviet-era surgical files in the flesh was too close to the reality of the torture. Files were written like nothing going had gone wrong; files didn't really describe the person being torn apart. Seeing Steve, who was shaking and sick, had to yank the reality curtain down, and down hard. It was hard to slot brain scars and a terrified victim against sterile language in files comfortably.  

Bucky watched as a nurse tried to tug Steve’s mouth open to peer into his airways. That at least set off something for Steve, and he bared his teeth and pulled his jaw from her grasp when she tried to press a wooden stick against his tongue. She tried once more and Steve twisted his face away.

The doctor stopped her, and Steve kept his head down and still, clearly afraid of punishment. His breath came heavier and his stillness was tense. The doctor said they'd move on, try any stressful procedures when the patient was more in control.

'Bucky,' Bruce said. 'He's in the best place he can be. The damage, the trauma: it's enormous. The support we're going to try to give him is just as big.'

'Yeah,' Bucky said. Steve hadn't moved, but he was tracking the doctor suspiciously. Bucky hoped, when the doctor and nurse would leave without having punished Steve, that Steve might understand that he was allowed to protest when he was frightened, that he might have a say in what happened to him. 'Yeah, you know, you’re right. It's just—It's him, you know?'

'I know,' Bruce agreed.

'When we were real little, he told me we shouldn't be friends because he wasn't gonna grow up, just die young,' Bucky said. He sniffed, but wasn't quite crying. 'He was so sure and he was always so sick. Must've been a half dozen times I was sure he was right. How are we both still here?'

'The answer depends on what sort of thing you believe in,' Bruce offered. 'Do you believe in fate? In God? In chance?'

'I don't know,' Bucky admitted. 'Steve believed in God. He believed in a lot of good things. It seems unfair that of all the people in the world he’s the one they took that from.'

'Life isn’t fair,' Bruce said sadly. 'I think the greatest disservice belief in God does to any of us is that it somehow implies that the world is a meritocracy. Of course it isn’t but we all hope and think it is.'

'It sure as hell isn’t a meritocracy,' Bucky agreed. 'After today, the deprogrammers are going to make us leave. They’re not going to let us visit until Steve is well enough to make a visitation permissions list.'

'How long will that be?' Bruce asked. Bucky shook his head; he didn’t know. The deprogrammers wouldn’t give him a timeline of any of this, apparently because there were no real answers. Bucky hated that. 'I hope it’ll be soon,' Bruce offered. 'I know you missed your friend, while you thought he was dead. He’s alive, but he might be locked away here for a long time.'

'He’s a lot more than just my friend, Doctor Banner,' Bucky admitted. 'He’s always meant a lot more to me than that.'

'Oh. _Oh_ ,' Bruce said, with two different inflections. He squinted thru his glasses down at the scan. 'That must have been hard, in your day.'

'The first time he got sick after we, uh, after we started,' Bucky said, a little awkward but mostly unsure where the story was coming from or why, 'he got sick real bad. His ma called the rabbi and everything, for the final prayers a Jew is supposed to say. He was too far gone to say them, barely knew anyone was in the room. His ma said them for him, with the rabbi. I thought that God was taking him from me because of what we had done.' Bruce was watching him, but Bucky didn’t know the man well enough to know what the look in his eyes was, pity or sympathy or something else entirely.

'There I was, a Catholic in a room full of Jews, thinking I was the reason that Missus Rogers was gonna lose her baby,' Bucky continued. 'He pulled thru, but he spent that night barely breathing. Kept asking for me, and I was right there. His ma wouldn’t leave his bedside, obviously, but I just wanted to hold him, have him in my arms when he died, and I couldn’t, couldn’t hold him like that. I was so scared he was gonna stop breathing and I was so sure if he did, it woulda been my fault. I kissed him first. I woulda been the one to send him to Hell.'

'That’s a horrible thing to think,' Bruce sighed. 'It’s horrible that someone taught you that.'

'Steve used to say the same thing,' Bucky laughed. 'The world he believed in was a beautiful one. Now look at him.'

The doctor and the nurse had gotten him to lie down again, and they were opening a service panel in the arm, removing the radio trackers HYDRA had put in. Bucky realised that Tony had externally disabled them before they boarded the plane from DC to New York, but he hadn’t been willing to open Steve’s arm like that, not with Steve so out of his head. Bucky figured this part didn’t bother Steve. System analysis and maintenance, he thought darkly, was as close to routine comfort as Steve seemed to have right now.

'There’s no part of this that’s easy,' Bruce sighed. 'Look, I have to go; Tony wants me to—'

'Go,' Bucky said easily. 'They’ll be kicking me out soon too. I’m just waiting around to say goodbye.'

'Well,' Bruce said after a moment. 'It’s not going to be goodbye. At most, it’ll be a see you later.' Bruce patted his shoulder awkward, reaching up to it. Bucky smiled down at his friend.

'Thank you, Doctor Banner,' he said sincerely. Bruce smiled back, nodding.

'Anytime, Captain Barnes,' he replied.

^^^

Bucky woke up to JARVIS’s apology.

'I’m sorry to wake you, Sir,' the AI said. Bucky groaned, shoving his head into his pillow. He was tired. He was hungry. He was sad and worried and Steve had been taken out of Stark Tower to a CIA treatment facility in New Jersey. Bucky hated New Jersey, but it wasn’t like he was allowed to visit anyways. Apparently Steve had asked them to keep him away until the asset was gone; he was scared he’d lose the fight against his programming. Bucky thought the chances of that were nil, but he’d always thought Steve was stronger than anyone gave him credit for, even himself. He also thought if Steve had really asked that, he couldn’t dare protest the dumb fucking policy keeping him from seeing Steve. 'Agent Romanov is here to see you.' Bucky groaned again.

'OK,' he said. 'Let her in; tell her I’ll be out in a few minutes.' He rolled onto his back. 'What time is it?' he asked.

'It is ten forty two in the morning, Sir,' JARVIS replied. 'You had a bit of a lie in. I hope you feel rested.' Bucky chuckled.

'I’ll feel rested when Steve is back at home,' he promised. 'Thanks, JARVIS.'

'It is only my pleasure, Sir,' JARVIS said before opening Bucky’s curtains. Encouragement to properly wake up was always welcome, so Bucky didn’t resent the AI doing things for him. He rubbed his face roughly. He hadn’t slept that heavily in a long while. He felt groggy. He rolled out of bed and went to his closet, which was enormous and only half-full. Bucky couldn’t help the swell of hope in his chest that maybe soon the other half would be full of Steve’s things, like they used to share cheap drawers in their old homes. He grabbed some comfortable lounging clothes and rushed thru a shower and brushing his teeth. He considered combing his hair but decided it didn’t matter. Men didn’t really keep their hair neatly parted anymore; combing it neatly and what Bucky remembered as stylishly had made Tony tease him for being a choirboy. Bucky had been unable to carry a tune in his youth; the choir at the Catholic church his family went to never would have given him a spot. He remembered when Rebecca had turned twelve she’d started singing in church; she had had a beautiful voice that filled him with both brotherly pride and brotherly jealousy.

When he had a shirt and some track pants on, he went out to his kitchen, where Natasha had helped herself to his icebox and was making him breakfast. He smiled tiredly and snuck past her to pour a hot cup of coffee. Caffeine didn’t really affect him anymore, but he still felt more awake after the comforting routine of black, strong liquid in the mornings.

'Sorry,' she said, referring to the fact she’d invaded his kitchen. 'Figured I’d feed you.'

'It’s not free food if it’s mine,' he quipped, sitting on the far side of the island. She hummed amusement as she pushed eggs about a pan.

'Free chef, then. In my bag,' she said, and he looked at the leather briefcase on the next seat, 'is an update from Steve’s deprogrammers. He’s having a rough time, but he’s doing well.'

'What’s rough?' he asked, even as he pulled the folder out and opened it. She shrugged, pushing bacon in the other pan. ‘Will you pass me one of the muffins from behind you?' She turned, peeling open the Tupperware he’d left on his counter.

'Did you make these, Mister Baker?' she asked, passing him a blueberry one. He nodded and she picked out another for herself, even if she didn’t tuck in but returned to the stove.

'Yeah, yesterday,' he said, skimming the files. 'Jesus, they did surgery?'

'They wanted to take out the drug implants in his head,' she replied. 'Apparently, when they explained what they wanted to do, he gave his consent and understood why it was happening. Generally, they won’t do a surgery without the programmed’s consent, unless it’s lifesaving. They’ll delay things until the programmed is able to give consent. He’d barely been there two weeks when he agreed to it.' That felt like a good sign to Bucky, that Steve wanted someone else’s controllers out of his head. It seemed like somehow recovery was possible, if Steve understood and wanted it too.

'This one wasn’t emergent,' Nat went on, 'but he could wait for the drug implants to run out or have them taken out. Either way, he’s going thru withdrawal now. It’s not pretty.'

'He must have been scared,' Bucky said. He hated that Steve had to go this alone, that Bucky couldn’t somehow take all the pain away and fix everything for him. He wished he could go back in time and change everything, but that couldn’t happen. He felt lucky to have Steve back at all; he wished he could make things better, but he wouldn’t change anything else for the world.

'I talked to him beforehand,' Nat said. 'He was scared but he believed me when I promised they were good doctors. I’m interviewing there, looking at joining the deprogramming unit. You’d be surprised at the demand.'

'Done with the whole espionage thing?' he asked. He didn’t mean it as a harsh callback to what she had done to him, what secrets she had stolen from him, but he bet it felt that way to her. She shrugged, not meeting his eyes as she poked at his breakfast. He could tell by the smell it was nearly done; his stomach growled and she laughed at him.

'Yeah, I think,' she said. 'I want to make up for things, not make more mistakes. Besides, I was programmed pretty heavily, once, not like Steve, but in the normal scheme of programming. I have insight to offer people who don’t have much of themselves left.' She passed him a heaping plate of hot, delicious food. He thanked her.

'And, uh,' Bucky began, unsure how to ask. 'Are you still on my team? When I have enough settled to start taking out HYDRA bases, can I call you?' Nat frowned at him.

'I thought you needed to trust your team members,' she said. He recognized the challenge. He shrugged.

'I trust you to get the job done,' Bucky replied. 'You’re a good soldier. You follow orders and you point out the bad ones. What happened with Fury, what you told him—It was your job, and maybe I should have known better. I mean, it was enough for me to—' He stopped, unsure of what he really meant.

'Enough for you to break off the nothing between us?' she prompted and he chuckled softly as he pushed more eggs onto his fork.

'Yeah, the nothing,' he agreed. 'But it’s not enough for me to—I still trust you, at least to fight, and I’ll need all hands on deck to take down HYDRA, for real.' Nat nodded, considering that.

'Then I’m yours to command, Captain,' she said, flat and serious in the way she only was when she was joking. 'I’m sorry too, you know,' she added and he nodded.

'Yeah, but that’s not enough,' he admitted. 'I was grieving. I had a broken heart and I showed it to you. You showed it to everyone else.' She looked away. Bucky sighed, feeling uncomfortable in his own home for a moment. Whether Nat had lied or spied or betrayed him or what, she had still opened herself up and he had still shot her down.

'Steve told me to tell you he misses you,' Nat said after a moment.

'Really?' Bucky said. 'He said that?'

'Not word for word,' Nat said, leaning against the counter by the sink and picking a piece off the top of her muffin. She tossed it in her mouth and rudely talked as she chewed. 'He isn’t able to piece together a lot right now. He’s pretty confused. Starting withdrawal didn’t help that.'

'Is that normal?' Bucky asked. Nat shrugged.

'There’s nothing normal about what he went thru, not even with what I know about programming,' she said. 'But he misses you.' Bucky looked down at the folder again, looking at the notes from the head doctor. He felt sick suddenly, and he closed the folder, pushing it away. 'What?' Nat prompted. He shook his head.

'I just wanna see him,' Bucky admitted. 'I don’t wanna read a file; I don’t wanna feel like I’m doing research on Steve. It’s bad enough I read this much.' Nat was frowning at him and he shrugged, poking his breakfast. Nat was a good cook, he had to give her that. 'I love him. Why would I read a file about him?'

'I don’t understand you,' Nat told him. Bucky smiled sadly.

'Yeah, I know,' he said.

^^^

Bucky waited impatiently outside the CIA visiting rooms. His leg was jogging up and down as he sat in a hard, plastic chair. He resisted the urge to check his watch again. He was on time and he damn well knew it. The waiting room was empty, unsurprisingly, and filled with rows of these black, plastic chairs. He was uncomfortable, and honestly, the chair was only a small part of his discomfort.

'Hello, Captain Barnes,' a woman called. He looked up and leapt to his feet, smoothing his jacket as she made her way over to him. Clint's contacts at the CIA got Steve into an institution run in New Jersey that could give Steve the deprogramming he needed while keeping him secure enough if the programming proved dangerous when damaged. Bucky wasn't sure it was. Steve had seemed lost to him, disarmed by whatever tripped wire made him question killing Bucky in the first place. Steve had seemed docile and afraid. Bucky wanted to hide him away from the world and protect him, but then, Bucky had never felt anything less than protective of Steve.

Failing him like this was something Bucky could never earn forgiveness for.

The woman stuck out a hand, a clipboard cradled in her left arm, casual and professional and easy. He took her hand, nodding cordially at her. She was tall, especially for a woman, lithe and reeking of confidence.

'I'm Doctor Nguyen,' she said, shaking Bucky's hand. 'But call me Melissa, please. I understand you're hoping to have some visitation contact with Private Rogers.'

'I am his superior officer,' Bucky joked weakly, and Doctor Nguyen gave him a polite smile. 'I just—I want to know he's gonna be OK,' he admitted. He looked away, afraid that she'd see right thru him. She probably would. The type of things people went to therapists about nowadays were the the things he would have talked to Father Doyle about, and that man had always seen right thru his bluster.

'Let's sit,' Melissa said, gesturing to the same waiting room seats Bucky had just leapt out of. 'Please,' she said, when he waited for her to be seated first. He sat.

'I understand the need for privacy,' Bucky began uncertainly, as Doctor Nguyen settled in, tilting her clipboard against her crossed knee so he couldn’t read it. 'I didn’t even read the file Natasha Romanov was given for me; it felt like an invasion. But I'm the closest thing to family Steve's got, and I'm the only one alive who even really knows who he is. Shouldn't I be involved in getting that person back?' She made a small note on her pad, not tilting her head down to even do so, just a flick of the pen and a pacific smile.

'We're not here to get your Steve Rogers back,' Melissa said easily. Bucky blinked at her. She shrugged, her narrow, elegant shoulders moving under her dark blue cardigan. He opened his mouth to try to rebut, but she plowed right on without him. 'That person, that version of Steve Rogers that existed before the war is gone. I'd bet he started dying the moment he went to war and I'm certain pre-war Steve Rogers died his first day on Doctor Zola's table.'

'Excuse me, Doctor,' Bucky tried, and Melissa shrugged again, dramatic.

'Frankly, Captain, I'm sure you feel like you're not the same man you were before the war either,' Melissa said. 'I'm sure you wake up some days thinking you don't know who or what you're getting up for. It's more complicated than that and neither of you are in the same situation, sure, but neither of you are the same people you were and you never will be. That's how trauma works. It is an injury. You can recover from it, but you can't go back in time.'

Bucky looked down at his knees, feeling like he'd been socked in the jaw. He hated this. He wondered if head doctors had been this way in the thirties. He felt like Steve's mum had been told she had nervous trouble and nothing more, none of these specialty diagnoses like today (a part of him knew she was a woman, and a Jew at that; even if specialty diagnoses had been around, she wouldn't have gotten one). Steve never talked about the times he'd been forced to see one for his asthma. So many things were so complicated now. It figured. A black eye wasn't normal on a nine year old and head shrinks knew what was wrong the first day they met you.

'My goal is to get Private Rogers to a point where he won't be a danger to others, or himself,' Melissa said, kindly and sincerely. 'I want to trace healthy paths for his changing brain neurons. A brain like Private Rogers' is remarkable. It is so incredibly damaged. The electrocution scars alone would have a normal person comatose. His brain isn't only managing to function past that, but it's still _actively healing_ itself, tangibly, where we can see. We get fMRIs every two days; it is a constant uphill battle for him, but he is tangibly improving.'

'He's healing,' Bucky said. Melissa nodded, smiling sadly. 'That's good.'

'It's hopeful,' she agreed. 'I understand quite a lot about your relationship to Private Rogers, as he’s been recovering memories and sharing them when he can.'

'How is he?' Bucky asked. 'I mean, he was a wreck when I last saw him. He’d be afraid to let me out of his sight one second and afraid he was gonna kill me the next.'

'He’s not well,' Doctor Nguyen said, not cushioning a thing. 'He has a lot of trouble keeping things straight, differentiating between new and old memories, keeping a hold on either. The withdrawal didn’t help that. But he is doing better. I feel like I see a little more of him each day, a little less of the programming.'

'Does he still ask for system recalibration?' Bucky asked.

'No,' she promised, understanding why that compulsion had been so important to dislodge. 'No, but he’s started asking for you quite often.' Melissa stood. 'I think your visitation today will be a safe one, and now that you understand the goal of our treatment a little better, it will be a productive one as well, I think.'

'Productive?' Bucky echoed. 'I didn’t really come here with a mission.' Melissa nodded as Bucky stood as well. Even this a tall woman, he overshadowed her height easily. He hoped it didn’t intimidate. Judging by her irenic smile, it didn’t.

'Every element of Steve’s recovery is a mission,' she said. 'Altho, I would avoid that particular trigger word when you’re in there,' she joked, as if by the time Clint had given her the stamp of approval Bucky hadn’t learned that. 'We’ll go in together today; maybe next time, Steve will feel up to seeing you on his own.'

'Why isn’t he up to it now?' Bucky asked. 'I mean, I’m not—I’m just worried.' Melissa sighed.

'He’s in a lot of pain still,' Melissa explained. 'His brain is literally stitching itself back together and that hurts. He’s peeling programmes out of his cognitive behaviours; that’s painful too. His memory centres are scarred like you wouldn’t believe, but he’s trying to recall things and store new memories. That hurts too. When his handlers were responsible for his care, he was constantly filled with incredible drugs, mostly benzodiazepines and some illegal, experimental, hypnotic drugs. The pain could cause what’s known as a paradoxical reaction, to drugs designed to make someone docile or suggestible; he’s still afraid the stress he’s in might make him lash out at you, at Pepper, the people he remembers but aren’t with us any longer.'

'That’s horrible,' Bucky said frankly. Melissa nodded sadly.

'He’s doing better,' she promised, and crossed the waiting room, opening one of the visitation rooms' doors. Bucky made his way in behind her.

Behind a table sat Steve, idly tracing lines in sugar. A tipped sugar canister laid on one of the table’s corners. His metal arm was held close to his chest, his flesh hand moving granules of sugar softly and slowly. He had a wooden coffee stirrer stuck behind his ear, no doubt used to make more delicate lines, and Bucky spotted the coffee station Steve had robbed at a smaller table in the corner of the room. It made him quirk a grin; Steve had always traced drawings in weird things during the war, rubble, twigs, dirt, even in ash against concrete. This behaviour felt unbelievably familiar.

'Steve,' Melissa prompted, and Steve started. He snapped his hand away from the sugar and wrapped his fingers around his metal wrist as if to hold himself back. 'You have a visitor,' she continued, pulling a chair out for Bucky across from Steve. She sat too, a few feet from them at the foot of the table. Steve followed her movement, barely glancing at Bucky.

'The asset—I made a mess,' Steve told her, and she smiled kindly, leaning to look at the lines he’d traced in the dark wood of the table and the white specks of sugar.

'It’s only sugar,' she assured him. 'Would you like to tell Bucky what you’ve drawn there?'

'Bucky,' Steve repeated, in that almost compulsive way Bucky had gotten not-quite-used to during Steve stint in the Tower’s guest apartment, before Clint had gotten in contact with Melissa. He didn’t look over at Bucky as he said it. Bucky couldn’t tell if Steve knew he was there.

'You were very excited about your visit,' Melissa reminded Steve. 'It seems you were distracted by your sugar drawing, huh?'

'Oh,' Steve said, looking at Bucky and really seeing him. Bucky mimicked Melissa’s encouraging smile, but Steve was staring vaguely at his shoulder, hands still held to his chest. 'Visit,' Steve added, helpfully.

'Hiya, Stevie,' Bucky said, grinning despite his worry. He leaned his elbows on the table, crooking his neck a bit in effort to meet Steve’s eyes. Steve turned his head away at that, not moving his gaze from the shoulder of Bucky’s jacket. Steve’s hair had been shorn recently, and Bucky could see lines in the stubble across his scalp, the remnants of a brain surgery that must have happened only a week or so ago, already looking like years-old scars. Bucky would bet next time he saw Steve that blond hair would be sprouting over faded scar tissue, as tho the trauma had never happened. He wished he could fix everything that quickly.

'Hello,' Steve said. His metal fingers whined as they twitched, soft enough for Bucky’s ears to pick it up. 'I know you.'

'I’m Bucky,' Bucky agreed. Steve nodded slowly, considering that. 'I was told you wanted me to visit you.'

'Yes,' Steve replied easily, looking back down at the sugar. 'Home,' he said, and Bucky leaned forward, carefully letting Steve see his intentional movement, to peek.

'That’s your ma,' Bucky realised, squinting at the picture upside down, as Steve pulled the coffee stirrer out from behind his ear. The movement made Bucky eye the device welded into his skull. He resented it, unreasonably. He understood it served the same purpose as Clint’s hearing aids, which never bothered him. But Clint chose his hearing aids; he could take them out when he was tired or didn’t need them. Even the cochlear implants, which Bucky had googled when trying to understand how a metal box stuck in Steve’s head could hear things, could be removed, at least the outside part. Even people who opted to have a magnet and technology put in their brain for electronic hearing had the choice of taking it off and going back to silence or muffled consonants and vowels. Steve didn’t have the choice of taking it out, and judging from the file Bucky had stopped reading after the first few pages, neither did his doctors, without significant risks. 'Do you remember your ma?'

' _Ani lo yode’a_ ,' Steve said, tracing out Missus Rogers' lower lip with delicate pushes of sugar. Bucky watched, impressed at the tiny lines Steve could make in the granules.

'That’s not the Russian he usually blurts out,' Melissa said quietly, looking to Bucky.

''S Hebrew,' he told her. 'He says he doesn’t know,' Bucky translated, nearly at the limit of his ability to do so. He’d never learned as much as he should have, only the barest of basics, absorbed from Steve and learned from Miss Miriam Schwartzman from upstairs. Steve looked at him, tilting his head like he had on the helicarrier.

'Hebrew?' Melissa repeated. 'How old was he when he learned?'

'I’m not sure,' Bucky replied, watching Steve finish his drawing. 'Little, probably. He and his ma spoke it almost exclusively when they were alone, not that they didn’t both speak English. It was hard to be Jewish in our day, harder than now; I think speaking their language—y’know, holding onto the good parts tightly—I think it made it easier to get hassled for a bad reason. They lived in an Irish neighbourhood, mostly Catholics. I guess he learned Russian with HYDRA.' He wondered if Steve had been forced to learn it, if they had installed it like they had installed protocols and orders, or if he had picked it up over the impossibly long time he’d been held. He didn’t look much older than Bucky did, and he wondered if that was an effect of the cryochamber or of Steve’s bastardized serum. Bucky had been told his own aging might be slowed, the same type of side effect of never getting drunk. The serum protected from damage and breakdown, and apparently aging was just a cellular breakdown over time. It worried him.

'It’s the first time you've drawn your mother,' Melissa prompted Steve, who didn’t seem to hear her. 'Do you remember her, Steve?' Steve didn’t reply, poking at the sugar of his mother’s hair.

'She died when we were teens,' Bucky explained, when it became clear Steve wouldn't. 'Maybe he’s remembering older things now, if he’s just now drawing Missus Rogers. He didn’t get much chance to speak Hebrew outside his synagogue, living with me, and in the war, only when we needed the Jews at concentration camps to trust a bunch of hooligans with guns and no Allied uniforms.'

'He slips in and out of Russian most days,' Melissa told Bucky. 'Miss Romanov has been a big help with him, in the days she’s here.'

'Is Nat here a lot?' Bucky asked.

'We’re considering adding her to our team,' Melissa said. 'Because of the language barrier, and because Steve remembers her in a way he doesn’t always remember me or the other therapists quite yet, she’s here four or five days a week. More than most of our trainees.'  

'Bucky,' Steve blurted. Bucky turned to him, smiling again.

'Hey there,' he said. 'How you doing, pal?'

' _Mah shlomecha_?' Steve asked him. Bucky thought very hard, trying to think of his response. He was good, fine, really. He was more concerned with how Steve was, not how he himself was dealing with all of this. His heart hurt, a bit, seeing Steve a bit despondent, a bit confused, still visibly afraid or maybe still shaking with withdrawal.

' _Tov, todah_ ,' he said, not sure if that was right. Steve looked back at his drawing, frowning at it. ' _Mah shlomecha_?' Bucky repeated, asking Steve.

' _Imi_ ,' Steve said, putting the coffee stirrer down. Bucky didn’t know the word, didn’t know if it was a reply or something else. ' _Ze matsa hen beeynekha_?' Steve looked at Melissa for confirmation, and she simply nodded encouragingly. Bucky had basically reached the end of his knowledge of the language, so he couldn’t help. Steve looked back to Bucky, not quite meeting his eyes. He said something else, too quick and low for Bucky to make out the unfamiliar sounds.

' _Ani lo—_ um. _Lo hevanti_ ,' Bucky told him, reaching for a way to explain he didn’t understand. He supposed he could have tried in English, but Steve had spoken in Hebrew to Melissa with such confidence, Bucky had a feeling English had fallen right out of his head for the moment. He couldn’t imagine how scrambled things must be in Steve’s mind. Steve winced suddenly, shaking his head too forcefully.

'Gentle,' Melissa warned.

'Gentle,' Steve echoed. His head stilled but Bucky could still read tension in his neck and shoulders.

' _Bari vashalem_ ,' Bucky said, trying to promise that Steve was safe and sound. He didn’t know why he thought he knew the phrase, but it did jar a reaction from Steve. Steve peeled an eye open, looking at him. ' _Atah_ ,' Bucky added, awkwardly. 'Um, _medaber anglit_?' Steve nodded, and looked back down at his sugar. He reached out with his right arm—his metal hand was still held close to his chest, like he didn’t trust it—and wiped it into a pile in the middle of the table.

' _Anglit_ ,' Steve repeated. ' _Da_. Yes,' he added, and it sounded like a realization. 'English.'

'I’m glad to see you,' Bucky told him, testing. 'You don’t look so tired.'

'We slept,' Steve replied. 'I remember.' His hand wrapped around his wrist again, holding his hands close to his diaphragm. Bucky wondered, briefly, how doctors nowadays controlled his asthma. Steve was breathing easy, easier than he had been in Stark Tower or even during the medical exam Bucky had seen.

'That was a while ago, tho, Stevie,' Bucky reminded him. 'I don’t even know how long it’s been.'

'Time elapsed: one month, six days, seven hours, approximately forty three minutes,' Steve reported. Bucky huffed a little laugh. Steve smiled slightly at the table.

'What, since we said goodbye?' he asked. Steve’s smile fell into a frown.

'We did not say goodbye,' he said firmly. 'It is not goodbye.'

'All right,' Bucky agreed, understanding Steve’s distinction easily. 'Since we said see you later then.'

'Yes,' Steve said. 'I have not been frozen.'

'Nah, nobody’s gonna freeze you anymore,' Bucky promised. 'No more storage.'

'Just sleeping,' Steve said, looking up and meeting Bucky’s eyes. Bucky smiled. He had missed Steve, so God damn much, and he was finally sure Steve was gonna be OK. He would have to thank Melissa, send her a beautiful bottle of wine and a Christmas card. Clint had promised Bucky a hundred times if Bucky had wrung it out of him once that he trusted her; Nat trusted her too; seeing she interacted with Steve, how he watched her without any fear, Bucky trusted the dame as well. She watched the two of the interact with a wise eye, and Bucky didn’t even mind.

'I am not afraid,' Steve told him.

'I’m proud of you,' Bucky replied. 'You drew your ma just now, you remember?' Steve looked down at the messy pile of sugar and then nodded, his fingers twitching like he wanted to push the granules around again. 'Tell me what you remember about your ma, Stevie. It’s been a while since I’ve heard you talk about her.'

'Her name was Sarah,' Steve began, and Bucky listened, letting Melissa prompt Steve thru halting sentences and jumbled languages. He watched as Steve finally gave into his twitching, human hand, sprinkling sugar as he talked and beginning to trace out the fire escape he and Bucky used to clamper on as kids, the one they smoked Luckies and asthma cigarettes on as teens, the one on which they’d spent their final night in that tenement building together after Steve’s ma died and he was getting kicked out. The struts and trusses were hard to make out in sugar, but Bucky recognized it easily.

When Steve finished, he offered the coffee stirrer to Bucky awkwardly. Bucky took it, careful and delicate. It really did feel like a gift, even if it were an impossibly flimsy bit of birch. Steve’s face remained impassive at that, but the tips of his ears turned pink.

'Home,' Steve said. Bucky nodded.

^^^

'Hello, Bucky,' Pepper greeted brightly as he waited for the elevator. He looked up from his tablet. He forced himself to smile at her, dimming his screen. He’d tried again to visit Steve today, only to be turned away for the third time. Steve was apparently having a rough experience with his withdrawal and the changing neural layout of his brain. Between the seizures and the difficulty he was having communicating, Bucky had been bared for their own safeties. He smiled at Pepper despite his bad mood; she was a friend to both him and Steve. He wouldn’t lash out at her because he was having a bad week. 'You did like the tablet, huh?' she asked. The doors opened and they stepped in.

'I do,' he agreed. 'I like the screen better than using the trackpad of the laptop.'

'It’s good to see you doing so well with technology,' she told him. He chuckled, because he remembered too well his first day at a computer with her, when the last thing he had typed on had been a typewriter. He’d asked where the paper went, and she had been unbearably patient and kind.

'Couldn’t have done it without you,' he said. 'My apartment, please, JARVIS.'

'Of course, sir,' JARVIS chimed in response. 'The penthouse, ma’am?'

'Yes, please,' Pepper said. 'I saw Steve yesterday,' she said as the lift started moving. Bucky frowned down at her, but as she rifled thru the papers she was carrying, she didn’t notice. 'He seems to be having quite a rough time. Doctor Nguyen says the reduction of his scar tissue is what’s causing his seizures, but once his brain gets used to the restored function, he should stabilize—'

'They let you in?' Bucky interrupted. Pepper looked up at him, surprised.

'Um, yes,' she said. 'Have you not—'

'They told me he’s not safe for visitors,' Bucky said. 'I only saw him twice before they restricted his visitation.' Pepper blinked and then looked away. The doors opened to Bucky’s apartment but he didn’t move, staring at her. 'You saw him _yesterday_?' he pressed.

'I’m sorry,' she said, seeming a bit thrown. 'I didn’t know you haven’t been able to see him.'

'We’ve arrived,' JARVIS prompted unhelpfully. Pepper took his elbow and lead Bucky into the hall between guest apartments. His door used to be labelled unit one, but because Tony thought he was hilarious, there was now a grey-etched emblem of his shield. Bucky avoided looking at it, opting instead to stare at Pepper.

'You’ve been able to see him?' Bucky asked. 'This whole time?'

'Have they told you why you can’t?' Pepper replied. He looked away from her, away from the worry etched into her eyes. He shook his head. 'Oh, Bucky, I’m so sorry. You know, he’s not really in control of himself right now. I’m sure if you just wait it out—'

A laugh broke out of Bucky’s chest, sounding broken and rough as bombed-out asphalt. He bit his lip to stop it. It hurt his ears, let alone what it must sound like to Pepper. Her tiny hand found its way onto his arm, a comforting gesture that threatened to break his levees.

'I’ve spent my whole life waiting,' he told her. He kept his voice carefully measured, keeping the torrent of fire far back. 'I don’t want to _wait_ anymore.' Her hand rubbed up and down gently but failed to soothe him.

'Steve’s only going to be in programming for a few months,' she offered. 'He’s only been back about eight weeks. It’s hardly been a lifetime—'

'It _has_ been a lifetime,' Bucky corrected her firmly. He shook his head. He wanted to pull away but he didn’t want Pepper to think he was ungrateful got her kindness. He was also afraid that if he pulled away he’d lose his very tenuous grip on the urge to yell and rage. It was so fucking unfair. 'He’d get sick, and I’d wait for him to die. He’d get better and I’d wait for him to get sick. I waited for my draft to end so I could go home to my family, then for the whole war, and then I woke up here and had to wait for a judge to tell me I wasn’t under SHIELD’s control. I’m so _tired_ of waiting.'

'Bucky,' Pepper began, but she didn’t know what to say. He didn’t think there was anything she could say.

'Does he—Does he not want to see me?' he begged. He looked back at Pepper, wondering if she could possibly have answers.

'I’m sure that’s not what it is,' Pepper promised. 'I was never one of his targets; maybe that’s all there is to it. To be honest,' she began, before hesitating, 'I’m not sure he always remembers who you are. I tell him how you are, but he doesn’t—I’m sorry.' She looked lost and unsure. 

'I used to be his world,' Bucky confessed. He had to pull away then; he felt like he was shattering. 'I used to be the one he reached for in the morning. Now I can’t even see him; I’m just sitting around waiting.'

^^^

'So? Steve? Who is this?' Melissa asked, tapping the sketch he'd begun fleshing out with scraped paint and blood against the walls. The asset blinked, seeing the sketch in front of him suddenly, like it was brand new. The asset did not remember beginning it, but there it was, nearly finished. The asset had never been good at identifying colour, even when he’d been changed and was suddenly able to see it all, but would report the wall as pale green if pressed. Melissa did not press. He scratched hard at the wall, drawing more blood and rubbing it into the shadows below the jaw.

The portrait was of a man, his face almost in profile but turned slightly, looking back. His hair was dark, his lips soft, and his jaw looking more right than the asset understood. Only a little of his shoulder was sketched out, just enough to finish the neck and military collar, because the memory of the muscles' sizes flickered between states. This was not a target. This was someone the asset had seen grow up. The asset had seen him thru other things, but the asset could not remember.

'Steve,' Melissa called. 'You with me?'

'Oh,' Steve said, vocalizing his realization. He was Steve. The asset was fading, and he was supposed to be Steve now. The failure of the asset had caused a collapse of HYDRA and its shell; the asset's handlers couldn't freeze him. The man who wasn’t a handler had brought him to Pepper. The asset wasn't a weapon anymore. The asset was being helped.

'Why don’t you climb down and tell me about it?' Melissa asked. Steve turned, looking at her. He was standing on his thin cot, scratching at what had started as a tiny chip in the paint and evolved into a developed portrait. He didn’t remember finding the chip or scratching the portrait, but he didn’t remember a lot of things. 'You’re not in trouble, even tho you're really not supposed to be vandalizing things anymore.' Steve looked down at his hand, which he'd scratched bloody with torn nails, and had then used the blood to colour, even as it healed as quick as the blood on the wall would dry. The nails would grow back in a day or two, but the bloody quicks would heal faster.

'Hello,' Steve said, which wasn't what he meant, but he couldn't always find the right words. Melissa smiled, and held out a hand. He placed his metal palm inside of it, because it seemed natural, and Melissa chuckled. She called him endearing, which the asset did not understand. He felt broken. His brain hurt and memory hurt and nightmares hurt and what he'd been told was withdrawal had him still confused and aphasic. He had seizures and shook still and didn't understand the tricks of being a person over a weapon easily.

'Hello, Steve,' she said warmly. 'Step on down, come on.' She pulled his hand and he understood the gesture, the image of helping a lady off a streetcar back home leaping in front of his eyes and taking the room from him for a terrifying second. Melissa was taller than Steve, but he could kill her one hundred ways, even without the metal arm. He stepped down.

'Who is this?' she asked. Steve looked at the portrait. He remembered.

'I know him,' he said. 'I was smaller. We said hello. We said—forever. We did not say goodbye.' He shook his head to demonstrate the negation. 'We did not say goodbye,' he told Melissa firmly, and she hummed her agreement.

'How old is the person?' Melissa asked. Steve stared at the portrait, considering. It felt like that portrait was from a very long time ago. If it was from a long time ago, the man in the picture had to be older now, younger then, but Steve swore he had seen the man and he still looked young.

'He is the same as me,' he decided. He didn’t really know, but they had always fit together so they had to be the same. ' _Ani lo yode’a_.'

'What does he like to do?' Melissa asked.

'Bake,' Steve said, unsure why he knew that. He wanted to stand on the bed again and touch the picture. He did just that, pressing the palm with human nerves where the shoulder would be. His hand covered the bits of the shoulder he had drawn, sticky with drying blood, but in real life, Steve’s hand felt small against this man. He didn’t understand why it wasn’t small against the picture. Melissa moved along the bed, folding her leg under her and settling onto the mattress. 'He steals my drawings and thinks I don’t notice,' Steve told her. She nodded, like that was the right answer. Steve would not be punished for it. 'He goes to church every Sunday and he likes the brown suit he wears when he goes. I do not like it,' he said, staring at his hand and frowning. 'It is not nice. Scratches. Itches.'  

'What does he dislike doing?' Melissa asked. 'You’re doing very well,' she promised when Steve didn’t reply. He thought about it.

'He does not like killing,' Steve decided. Melissa tilted her head ever-so-slightly, a concerned tick she seemed not to know she had. 'He had to leave and go to war,' Steve said by way of explanation. He kept his palm on the drawing and looked down, staring at Melissa’s folded knee. He was supposed to look at her eyes but it scared him. 'He did not like war. He did not like blood. He liked bread.'

'Has anyone tried to hurt him?' Melissa asked. Steve nodded.

' _Da_ ,' he replied. ' _The asset. Someone shot him outside Prague. Someone shot him in Lille. Someone shot him in—Nyet_ ,' he realised, and he also realised he had to speak English for Melissa. 'We were on a train,' he explained. 'I had his shield. I stopped the blue from taking him away.' Steve frowned at Melissa’s knee. He couldn’t piece the whole scene together; it hurt too much. He shook his head hard enough to hear the shake in his ears, trying to shake the pain out somehow. It failed.

'Gentle,' Melissa warned him.

'Gentle,' he repeated, and he tilted his head instead, like that could let the stabbing sensation fall out. 'That was good.'

'Who looks out for him?' Melissa said finally, and Steve remembered these questions. She asked him these about every person he drew. He didn’t always know the answers, and he knew everything about this person. He wondered what their name was. A sharp pain in his skull forced his right eye to squeeze shut and Steve to pull a face. He closed his other eye for good measure, pulling his features together to stop the stabbing sensation. It failed.

'Ow,' he said, because he was supposed to vocalize pain so people would know they were hurting him, that they should stop. ' _Ow_.'

'Oh, Steve,' Melissa sighed, sounding not disappointed but empathetic. The asset had failed to answer the question and this new handler did not punish for failure. That didn’t make sense. The asset was shaking. The asset was not cold and the asset didn’t understand why he was shaking. 'Sit down; you’re going to fall.' He struggled to sit, struggled to make his body cooperate.

'He is a target,' Steve choked out, folding himself onto the bed. Melissa’s hand touched his knee; he did not pull away. 'He is the mission. The asset has failed.'

'Steve, the mission is over,' she promised. 'You saved his life. You stopped a lot of destruction and it was your choice. Do you know what a choice is?' She asked him that a lot, and only sometimes did he know.

' _Da_ ,' he said, because today he remembered. 'Where’s Bucky? Where’s Pepper? _Gde oni_?'

'They’re not here,' Melissa said. 'I’m sorry, Steve. It’s just you and me.'

'Is the asset gone?' Steve asked. He forced his eyes open and the room swam. 'Ow,' he said, trying to warn Melissa that a seizure was coming. She understood, even tho he hadn’t said the right words, and she left him on the bed to go to the intercom at the door. He laid on the bed and felt his body start shaking in earnest, real, painful clenches of muscle. It hurt.

'Code Mike,' she said into the intercom, and the world faded as Steve’s brain betrayed him and took him away.

^^^

It was a while before Bucky was let in to visit Steve again. He purposefully didn’t count the days, stopping by the deprogramming unit to ask after Steve four times a week, at fifteen hundred hours. He liked keeping a schedule, and he organized his research and VA meetings and appointments at consulates around the possibility that he might get to visit again. His preparation for HYDRA assaults was going well, but Bucky couldn’t relax without knowing Steve was doing well too.

Nat claimed he was, when he interrogated her for vague details. Melissa, on days she came out to the visitor’s lobby to refuse Bucky directly, promised him the same things. He buried himself in dumped SHIELD files, trying to track down every HYDRA base he needed to take down. He spent hours with various national delegates, trying to get permissions and support to truly wipe this particular evil off the face of the planet. He kept himself busy, kept himself active, but nothing he could do seemed to take the worry away from his nights.

'Captain Barnes,' a familiar voice called as he waited in the visitation lobby to be turned away. He smiled at Melissa, giving her a familiar handshake. 'How are you today?'

'I’m fine, Doctor,' he replied. 'How are you?'

'I’m very happy to have good news for you,' she replied, for the first time. Bucky almost jumped, he was so surprised.

'Really?' he demanded. His heart started pounding, hopeful and traitorous in his chest.

'Yes,' she promised. 'Steve’s ready to see you.'

' _Really_?' he asked again. He sounded incredulous. He felt bewildered, somehow, as tho he had genuinely stopped anticipating he would ever see Steve again. It made him feel a bit silly, and it put a bit of a shake in his knees as he thought about seeing Steve.

'Really, really,' Melissa laughed. 'He’s in visiting room three.' Bucky looked at the neatly painted numbers. He’d started to think he would never see Steve ever again. 'He has had a turbulent time over the last few weeks you’ve been unable to visit,' Melissa explained, comfortable telling him now that he assumed she had an end to the tale. 'His brain sped up its healing, which was good, but it lead to increased seizure activity and it made Steve unwilling to trust himself to see many visitors. We’ve gotten him to agree to some temporary control medications, to help with the seizures and hopefully with the pain. He’s distrustful of them—'

'As well he should be,' Bucky put in.

'As well he has the right to be,' Melissa hedged. 'But things have improved.'

'He’s not in pain anymore?' Bucky clarified.

'Oh, no, just not as much,' Melissa told him frankly. He appreciated her honesty.

'Was it dangerous to let me visit while he was having fits regularly?' Bucky asked.

'Probably not,' Melissa admitted. 'But it was very hard for Steve, to be unable to trust his body again. I think the feeling of a seizure coming up reminded him of times he was unable to resist the programming. He makes as many of the decisions as we can let him. He made that call.'

'I see,' Bucky said, because he really did. He remembered the very first night in Stark Tower, when Pepper had ordered him away. He had hated that. He had hated that Steve couldn’t even trust himself, of all people. He prayed that that would change soon. Melissa nodded at the door, leading Bucky over.

'It’s a solo mission today, Captain,' she told him, and he nearly gaped.

'Really?' he asked. Melissa laughed. She opened it for him, and nodded him in.

'I’ll be right out here if you need me,' she said. ' _Any_ reason,' she ordered, 'just knock.' She closed the door behind him. Security deadbolts engaged, and Bucky bet neither the door behind him nor the door on the other side of the room opened internally.

Bucky barely noticed. Standing by the dark couch against an ugly, minty wall was Steve. His hair was longer, almost long as it had been in nineteen forty five, combed neatly, but the shadows in his eyes were lesser than Bucky remembered them being. Steve even looked up when the door closed, smiling hesitantly at Bucky. His flesh hand hugged the wrist of his other arm, a nervous gesture that worried Bucky, but Bucky’s own face split into a grin so big it nearly hurt. Steve’s hesitant smile grew in response.

'Holy shit, guy,' Bucky crowed. 'You look great. Can I give you a hug?' he asked. Steve nodded. Steve rounded the low coffee table, moving between the two wooden chairs to meet Bucky. He tucked his head into Bucky’s shoulder, slinging his arms around Bucky’s waist. Steve gave a shaky breath into his shirt, like just holding Bucky felt as good as holding Steve did to him. 'God, Stevie, how long has it been?' He didn’t really mean it as a question, but Steve knew the answer.

'Time elapsed,' Steve reported into his shoulder: 'two months, one week, four days, nine hours, approximately twenty four minutes.'

'Well, shit,' Bucky said, letting Steve go and clapping his hands against Steve’s cheeks. He held his friend, still grinning. 'Those last twenty four minutes were especially killer.'

'A joke,' Steve said confidently. Bucky laughed, letting him go. Steve pushed himself into another hug. Bucky kissed the top of his head; he couldn’t help old habits which refused to die now that their focus wasn’t dead anymore. 'A long time,' Steve added, taking his arms from Bucky almost hesitantly. He seemed unsure of what to do then, so Bucky gestured at the chairs and the couch. Steve followed his gesture and stared at the seating. Bucky took the lead and sat in the corner of the couch, which was infinitely more comfortable than the black plastic outside.

'So?' Bucky prompted, wondering if he should prompt Steve to sit. 'How are you?' Steve looked around the small, securely-bare room, honestly considering the question.

'Better,' Steve decided. He rounded the table mechanically and sat in the other corner from Bucky. He didn’t lift his eyes up, just staring at the corner of the bare table. 'I am better.'

'How come?' Bucky asked. Steve glanced up for a moment and then shrugged both his shoulders.

'I am not afraid,' Steve said. 'I am better, not good, because it still hurts. I remember and it hurts. There are scars—' Steve touched his right thumb to his forehead, and Bucky understood the scars he meant were big ones, left by Howard and many others, marks from the burning and cutting of the most precious part of his brain. '—but they are healing. It is slow.'

'Hey, it’s faster than anyone else could heal,' Bucky offered. Steve nodded. Bucky imagined that was an empty comfort. 'Nobody else could come back from where you’ve been.'

'How are you?' Steve asked the table.

'I’m better,' Bucky said, echoing Steve because he would follow Steve anywhere. 'Better now that I’m allowed to see you. I’ve been worried about you, but it seems like you’re doing well. You’re in good hands here, in any case.' Steve looked up, making eye contact in earnest.

'Did you meet Melissa?' he asked, obviously forgetting that Bucky had sat in a room with the both of them for nearly an hour two months ago. 'I like her.' Bucky grinned.

'Of course you do,' he agreed. 'You always like strong women. She doesn’t take any of your shit, huh?' Steve shook his head. 'That’s good, pal; that’s real good.'

'She—I would steal paper and pens from the nurses, from my chart,' Steve told him. 'She brought me pencils and, um.' He looked away, thinking. After a moment, he mimed a book with his hands, frowning.

'A sketchbook?' Bucky guessed. Steve nodded again, meeting Bucky’s eyes once the word was found.

'She asks me questions about what I draw,' Steve told him. 'I don’t always know the answers to the questions, but I am not punished when I fail. I think I draw you a lot.'

'You think?' Bucky asked. Steve shrugged both his shoulders again, a slow, deliberate gesture he’d clearly absorbed from Melissa. It wasn’t as fluid as her dramatic shrug had been, but the blueprints of the movement were there. It was endearing, somehow, to see Steve mimicking behaviours he had learned from such a positive influence as Melissa. Seeing how much better Steve was, Bucky wanted to knock on the door quickly and kiss her. He couldn’t believe it.

'It is hard to remember, even new things,' Steve explained, smoothly, without halting and wincing like he had even at his best moments of Bucky’s last visit. 'But I think it’s you I draw. Were we small? Were we small together?'

'Once upon a time,' Bucky promised, 'we were both real small. You were always smaller, I’m sorry to say.'

'Small is an advantage,' Steve corrected. 'The asset was small and could hide more easily. Small weapons can perform delicate tasks; the asset performed many.'

'You’re not the asset anymore,' Bucky guessed, because when Steve had said the asset before, it had been like he was speaking in a stilted code, in an artificial first-person. Now it felt different, like he really meant the weapon they forged and controlled with lightning and ice, not me. Steve shook his head. 'No?' Bucky prompted, wanting more.

'No,' Steve said. 'I was, but—' He tapped his forehead again. '—I am better now. I missed you,' he added after a moment. That made Bucky smile, even if hearing it prickled his eye like smoke from a dying campfire. 'Did—Did Natalia—' Steve faltered briefly, losing his sentence.

'She told me,' Bucky assured him. 'Nat told me you missed me, and, damn, Stevie, that meant a lot to me.'

'I shot her,' Steve told him. He looked remorseful, which almost amused Bucky, in a morbid, distant way. 'I remember.'

'Yeah, I know,' Bucky sighed. 'Technically, the asset shot her, and you’re not the asset anymore.'

'No,' Steve agreed. 'But I told her I was sorry. She told me I was an idiot.' Bucky chuckled at that, his voice a little wet. Steve smiled despite that, looking a little sad himself. 'Did you read the file she gave you?' he asked. Bucky shook his head. 'I didn’t think you would,' Steve admitted. 'I don’t remember why but I thought you wouldn’t.'

'Why did you let her take it?' Bucky asked. 'Did you ask her to give it to me?' Steve nodded and looked away, thinking and frowning.

'I thought you might want to know,' he said simply.

'I do,' Bucky said, 'but I don’t want to hear anything you don’t want me to.' Steve avoided his eyes. 'I just want to know what you want me to know, and if that’s nothing, I’ll stew in my worry and never say a damn word.'

'I killed Howard,' Steve told him. 'He was my friend; I remember.' Bucky nodded and the prickle in his eyes grew stronger. He swiped a thumb under one of them, but not to wipe away a tear, no.

'Howard did a lot of things,' Bucky hedged. 'I don’t think he deserved to die, not like that at least, and not to orphan his son, but he did a hell of a thing to you. I don’t know how he could have done this, not to you, not to anyone.'

'I remember him; he was our friend. I remember he helped replace my spine, my shoulder, my bones,' Steve said. Bucky hadn’t known that, but considering the weight and force the metal arm could bear, of course it had to be anchored irreparably in Steve’s body. He hoped at least the new spine was straight as Bucky’s and that Steve’s hips stopped paining him with every fifth step. He hoped, for all the horror of it, the new bones took some of Steve’s pain. 'I remember. Not all of it, but—but pieces, I remember. Who did I orphan? Who did HYDRA orphan? Did I orphan him?'

'I think HYDRA did,' Bucky offered. 'If you’d had any choice, you wouldn’t have murdered Howard, no matter what he’d done to you. His son’s name is Tony,' Bucky replied. 'You met him; do you remember that? He found you after you started me breathing, when you were running south along the Potomac. He brought you home, that first night you were back in New York, before the deprogrammers took you to fucking Jersey?'

'Everyone hates New Jersey,' Steve said automatically, and Bucky laughed. It broke out of him, unexpected, big and sincere, and Steve looked up to smile and watch the laughter.

'Yeah, you’re damn right they do,' Bucky agreed. 'Fuck, Stevie, that’s funny.'

'I remember Pepper,' Steve said. 'I know Tony loves her.'

'Yeah, he does,' Bucky said, softer than he’d meant to. 'It’s nice. They’re very lucky.'

'We loved each other once,' Steve told him. Bucky nodded, unsure, suddenly, what to say. 'I still don’t know who I am, not really, so you don't love me now, but maybe when I know who I am, you can.' Steve broke his eyes away and his hand encircled his metal wrist again. Bucky leaned forward before he could stop himself, taking a hand and pulling it out of the nervous gesture.

'Steve,' he said seriously, 'I loved you since we were small together, remember? I loved you in the thick of the war, and I loved you when I thought you were dead. I love you now,' he admitted. 'And I even loved you on that fucking helicarrier, when you dropped me into the Potomac like an asshole.'

’Til the end of the line,’ Steve supplied, bypassing Bucky’s tease. 'You said that once.'

'I’ve said it more than once,' Bucky promised. 'And I fucking meant it, matoki. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not alone.'

'My mother died alone,' Steve said, apropos to almost nothing, staring at their mismatched palms. Bucky wondered, if they both squeezed as hard as they could, which would break first: metal or bone. It was a morbid question and he hoped he would never have cause to know for sure. 'You said it when you found my key. I buried her alone, but you came to the service. I needed the money to pay for rent and the funeral. I didn’t even sit shiva.' Steve frowned at the words as they came out of his mouth. Bucky didn’t know if Steve remembered what shiva was, if he remembered sitting it for members of his synagogue, or for the Blumenfelds in Bucky’s folks’ first building, when their second baby died, just three years old. Bucky wondered if Steve remembered the prayer he used to say twice a day, always more devout that Bucky had been, if he said it now, or if that had been stolen too effectively for him to remember.

'No, you couldn’t sit shiva for your ma,' Bucky sighed. 'You coulda if I’d been living with you then, but you insisted you could make it on your own.'

'I couldn’t,' Steve supposed. Bucky huffed a tiny laugh.

'No, not really,' he said. 'You had a lot going against you. But you’re not alone now, OK? I’m here, OK, and even when I’m not around, all you have to do is call and I’ll come running.' He rubbed his thumb against the back of Steve’s metal palm.

'Did I say the Kiddush?' Steve asked. Bucky shook his head.

'I don’t know,' he admitted. 'You always prayed, so if you were supposed to, I’m sure you did.' Steve nodded slowly at that, taking a moment to wince. His breath caught for a moment before he opened his eyes.

'I meant to bring my drawings for you, but I did not remember,' Steve told him. Bucky laughed.

'That’s fine,' he promised. 'You show me next time.'

'Next time,' Steve repeated, like a vow. Bucky watched their hands, together on the couch.

'Can you feel that?' Bucky asked, curious.

'The—my hand?' Steve guessed. Bucky nodded. 'I feel pressure,' Steve said. 'I need to be able to pull triggers, which requires pressure, but I cannot feel pain, not heat, not much else. The asset’s arm would have been a hindrance and not an added weapon if it could feel all that my other hand could.' That made Bucky sad, somehow, to imagine half of Steve’s tactile world had been reduced to another form of blade for the knife he’d been turned into. 'I can’t feel that,' Steve said finally, as if deciding. 'If you press, I’ll feel more,' he added, almost shyly, and Bucky did, easily applying enough pressure to pull a trigger, eleven pounds of affection pouring into Steve from his thumb. Steve smiled, watching the movement of Bucky’s thumb.

'I am not afraid,' Steve said after a long silence. He pulled Bucky’s hand off of his own, draping Bucky’s arm over the back of the couch, and then he pointed at Bucky’s side. 'Permission?' he asked, stilted and awkward and avoiding Bucky’s eyes, but so God damned sincere it nearly made Bucky cry again. He nodded, and Steve shifted over the cushions, pressing against Bucky’s side like a lifetime of muscle memory had to demand, curling his legs over and onto Bucky’s lap. Bucky draped an arm over him, his own memory warm and alive in his bones. They used to sit like this at home, curled together and desperate to never let go. He pressed his face into Steve’s hair. He smelled clean, and a little bit like crisp metal from the arm, but mostly he smelled like Steve.

He smelled like home.

^^^

'I’m not willing to just—just fly into random countries and start blowing things up,' Bucky repeated, passing Tony his coffee. 'Sovereignty exists, pal.' Tony snorted, poking at the hologram he had all lit up.

'So you’re, what, liaising with multiple national governments for permission to take out the HYDRA bases in their countries?' Tony asked. 'That’s why it’s been nearly five months and we’ve only made forward movement in the States?'

'Yes,' Bucky said simply. 'We can’t just go places and blow things up. What if we need civilian evacuations? HYDRA isn’t gonna avoid tearing down the cities around them. We have to go about this aboveboard and safely, or else we’re just vigilantes, criminals. We’re don’t have any real jurisdiction by virtue of being superheroes.'

'And what if Sokovia, for example, tells you to fuck off?' Tony asked. Bucky sighed, watching his friend tinker with the hologram. 'What if HYDRA has infiltrated those governments and gets headwind that the Avengers are coming for them?'

'We’ll cross that bridge if we get to it. Besides, no country has said no to me yet,' he pointed out. 'We’re good to go into Latvia next week. They’re evacuating the villages around the base because of pretend leaks at the natural gas plant nearby; it’s only about five thousand civilians, but that’s five thousand who won’t be in a direct line of fire. They’re also shutting down the plant, making it less likely to explode if HYDRA hits it with a mortar. And as far as HYDRA getting a warning, I don’t think they’ll be able to hold against my whole team, advanced warning or no.'

'Wow, a high opinion of us, huh?' Tony mused. Bucky shrugged.

'We did stop hundreds aliens from space and a demi-god,' he said. 'And I’ve never been wrong to trust my team before.'

'Well, your team did not dismantle HYDRA last time,' Tony pointed out, a little sharper than he needed to be.

'Actually, we did,' Bucky snapped. 'I’ve been reading a lot about it, in all those dumped files. We took out nearly every single base, and all the major ones. HYDRA crumbled, reduced to maybe six hundred men in fringe groups. Once the Red Skull was gone, the few functioning bases were abandoned. Four hundred men went to hiding in Eastern Europe, which HYDRA hadn’t had a foothold in before; Stalin distrusted them more than Hitler had the sense to. They should have just died out without a real leader. They would have, if Arnim fucking Zola hadn’t built it back up from the inside of SHIELD. I shoulda shot him in his wormy fucking face when we captured him on that train, lied and said he popped his cyanide like everyone else did.'

'Captain America can’t lie; everyone knows that,' Tony chirped.

'You’re an asshole,' Bucky told him seriously, picking up his own coffee. Tony laughed, like that was funny. Bucky sighed. 'What is this?' Bucky asked, pointing at the hologram.

'It’s a hologram,' Tony began, explaining. Bucky rolled his eyes so hard it hurt.

'No, you dick,' he grumbled without real malice. 'What are you working on?'

'Oh,' Tony said, frowning at him. 'Yeah, I was surprised you didn’t know what a hologram was by now, living here, clogging up my workspace every other day.'

'You love having me here to pass you things,' Bucky retorted. Tony nodded.

'I like bouncing ideas off your ancient brain,' he agreed. 'Um, I uploaded Dad’s old schematics for Rogers' metal arm. I figure I can update the tech somehow, maybe let him feel a bit of texture, or maybe hot and cold. If I can do it at all, I can do it so we can disable it during ops if he joins the team, let him keep grappling asphalt and deflecting bullets like a badass.'

'He’s not joining the team,' Bucky snapped. Tony eyed him, surprised at the outright refusal.

'Really?' he asked. 'I thought you’d be excited to have your old pal back in the field with you.' Bucky scoffed.

'Out in the field is a dangerous place,' Bucky said. 'He’s been thru a lot. I’m not sending him back into the line of fire, and certainly not against HYDRA.' Tony looked away. 'It’s not right, or fair, to expect him to fight again. I won’t have it.'

'Shouldn’t it be his choice?' Tony said, poking at a very soft spot of Bucky’s temper. He bristled, but he knew it was probably unintentional that Tony had landed such a well-aimed blow. 'He hasn’t had a lot of them lately,' Tony prompted when Bucky didn’t reply.

'I don’t know,' he admitted, holding back the urge to yell barely. 'What I do know is that I got him killed once before—'

'He wasn’t killed—' Tony interrupted, trying to ease Bucky’s mind.

'No,' Bucky agreed, seething. 'What fucking happened was much, _much_ worse.' He practically slammed his mug down on the worktable he sat at, rage hot in the bones of his fingers. 'It’s not going to happen again.'

'Well, I’m hoping we can replace or update the processors integrated his remaining nerves,' Tony said, changing the subject. Bucky wondered if he changed it because he regretted setting Bucky off like this, or if he just didn’t know how to deal with Bucky’s raw fucking emotions. Bucky forcibly stopped his leg from jogging against the rung of his stool. 'We need to do it without damaging those nerves. Once nerves are dead, he’s basically fucked. I’m gonna get Bruce to look at this too. He knows bio-organics better than almost anyone alive.'

'That’s an incredible gift you’re giving Steve,' Bucky admitted, staring at the lights he now recognized as nerves of the shoulder and servomotors and plates of the arm. He didn’t understand the technology, not really, but he understood that that type of advancement would mean the world to Steve, after decades of weaponized sensory feedback. 'Right now, less than nine pounds of pressure, he can’t feel it. If it had been his right arm they sliced away, he wouldn’t even be able to draw anymore. This will mean a lot to him.'

'If I can make it work,' Tony went on after heaving a sigh, 'I’m also gonna start holding fundraisers for further development. Lots of people don’t have arms, or legs, and Steve’s prosthetic is already far more advanced than anything on the market today. Most prosthetics out there don’t have a real grip, and he can flip knives and has impeccable proprioception. I figure I can get some veterans for the first wave of clinical testing, maybe market the development to help public opinion on Steve.'

'It’s not so positive right now,' Bucky sighed. 'I don’t understand how anyone could look at what they did to Steve and still think Steve deserves to be imprisoned, or killed. Shit, isn’t what they did to him punishment enough, if you thought he needed some?' Tony shook his head, clearly without answers.

'Sirs?' JARVIS chimed. 'Miss Potts invites you both to join her in the penthouse.'

'Thanks, JARVIS,' Bucky replied. 'You coming?' he asked Tony as he pushed off the tall stool he’d been sitting on. Tony nodded, still tinkering.

'Yeah, just behind you,' he said.

'She’ll just tell JARVIS to tell you to stop fucking around down here if you don’t come up with me,' Bucky pointed out. 'Don’t make JARVIS clean up Pepper’s profanity; he already does so much. Come on.' Tony rolled his eyes, waving his work away. He heaved himself up with an exaggerated groan, and Bucky snorted. God, Tony called him an old man.

They made their way to the elevator, and JARVIS took them up. 'You look tired,' Bucky told Tony. 'You sleeping all right?'

'No worse than usual, I suppose,' Tony said. 'I’ve been up late working on things, mostly. I want to beat our market projections by fifteen percent this quarter, and the arc reactor of the Tower needs to be renewed.'

'Take smaller bites,' Bucky advised as the doors opened.

'Pepper?' Tony called.

'Come into the dining room,' she called back. Bucky usually hung out only in their expansive living room, so he trailed after Tony, absently eyeing the art hung about the hall. He took his eyes off a Kandinsky and just in time to be practically tackled in the doorway by someone. He let out an oof, stumbling back to the sound of Pepper laughing at him.

'Stevie!' he gasped, when he realised who was clinging to his middle. 'Holy shit! You’re home!'

'I’m an outpatient,' Steve bragged, peeling himself off Bucky. 'Pepper brought me home,' he added, smiling big and bright, and it felt like the first real smile Bucky had seen from Steve since before the war. He clapped a hand against Steve’s neck, almost crying he was so happy.

'God damn, it is good to see you,' he said, even tho he had visited Steve two days ago. He hadn’t anticipated it, but seeing him at home was a thousand times better and brighter. 'Last time I came by, you didn’t say you were getting out,' he accused.

'I wanted to surprise you,' Steve said. Bucky let him go, and Steve turned to Tony, who looked unbelievably smug. Bucky realised both he and Pepper had to have been in on this; no doubt Steve’s outpatient release terms relied on Stark Tower’s security system. Fuck, Bucky was lucky to have such good fucking friends here in the future. It spun his head, even now.

'Nice to see you again, kiddo,' Tony said kindly, sticking out a hand for Steve to shake. Steve shook it and his smile didn’t fade. 'Good to be home?'

'Good to be with Bucky,' Steve admitted. 'Thank you for helping me come here.'

'What is it with the two of you and thanking me unnecessarily?' Tony grumbled, leaving Bucky and Steve to kiss Pepper hello. Pepper accepted his kiss and the arm he laid over her shoulders. She laid a casual, loving hand on his belly.

'Why don’t we go get dinner from the kitchen?' Pepper asked Tony, and Bucky realised the table was set for four. Tony was about to protest, but she shot him a look. They were giving Steve and Bucky a bit of privacy, to say a private hello. Pepper was an angel, Bucky swore. He hugged her as she passed, whispering his own thanks to her as he kissed her cheek. She still wore her business heels, so he barely had to stoop at all.

'You’re home,' Bucky said again when they were alone, looking down at Steve in amazement. He was standing too close, he realised, close as he would have stood before, when he and Steve were alone. He still didn’t understand the boundaries of this, what was appropriate, and what was foisting his needs and wants on the formerly shattered man in front of him.

'I’m home,' Steve agreed, taking the initiative to step even closer. He reached up, his hand cold against Bucky’s neck. Bucky understood the request and he touched his own hand to Steve’s face, pulling him into a kiss. It might have been a bad idea, but he couldn’t possibly have done anything differently.

His hand tangled in Steve’s hair, longer now than it had been at the beginning of his treatment, after the final brain surgery. His fingers brushed cool metal filtering Steve’s hearing, forcing his hand to curl tighter and away, almost pulling. Steve’s touch was nothing, nothing but gentle, soft, careful. It twisted his heart, fond and sincere and tender. His fingers tingled and his lips moved against Steve’s knowing without Bucky what exactly to do. Bucky felt a small noise escape his throat, and Steve bit his lips lightly, softly, in response, as reward.

He pulled away slowly, peppering Steve’s cheek with smaller kisses as he went. Steve let him, tucking his warm hand into Bucky’s. Bucky held it tightly as he dared, sweeping his hand over the section of blond he had rucked up.

'God, I missed you,' Bucky told him seriously. 'I missed you so much.'

'I’m not going anywhere now,' Steve promised. 'I want to stay. I want to stay with you.'

^^^

'Hey there,' Bucky whispered as he brushed Steve’s hair away from his face. Steve let out a whistling breath, twisting as he opened his eyes to look up at Bucky. 'I’m sorry to wake you, but I could practically hear your dreams going bad.'

'No,' Steve lied, because as he came back to himself, some of his damnable pride came with him. Bucky glared. Steve looked away, twisting until he lay on his back. 'Yes. But I’m glad you’re home. Are you all right?' Steve asked, reaching his metal hand out, touching Bucky’s knee.

'Yeah, bumps and bruises is all,' Bucky promised. He had showered and changed into his pyjamas already. He still wasn’t used to sleeping properly, fully clothed, but until Steve initiated romantic activity which required him to be undressed, he was going to keep his thin sweats and Henley in place. Steve pulled him down for a gentle, soft kiss, and Bucky sighed happily against Steve’s lips.

'All gone?' Steve asked when he let Bucky go. He wiggled, moving off of Bucky’s side of the bed. Bucky climbed in, sighing happily. He had been gone nearly two weeks, far too long, but today’s battle hadn’t been long, only about three hours. The plane ride back from China was a long one. China had been surprisingly amenable to an American-run group of superheroes eradicating HYDRA. He supposed China had many secrets which had been stolen by HYDRA and subsequently dumped online with SHIELD files. They considered the group domestic terrorists and had actually reached out to Bucky shortly after their first, successful mission in Latvia, offering to collect even more information than Bucky had already had. He supposed the country couldn’t risk a group like HYDRA; perhaps more than a lot of countries, China had a lot to lose if a large, overwhelming number of their government were to be wiped out in a single fell swoop, like Project: Insight would have done, not to mention the regular citizens who may have been destroyed. It might have devolved far too quickly into chaos.

'All gone from Beijing, Shanghai, and, um, eight spots along the Yangtze River,' Bucky promised. 'Got to dismantle one of your old cryochambers,' he admitted, closing his eyes for blessed, blessed sleep. 'That was very disturbing.'

'I don’t remember China,' Steve told him, tapping Bucky’s arm until he lifted his sore muscles to let Steve snuggle close. Steve was kneeling on the bed, he realised as kneecaps bumped him. He opened his tired eyes, looking up. Steve tugged at his shirt, peering.

'Hey,' Bucky protested. 'What are you—'

'You said you were fine last time but I saw the bullet hole in your arm,' Steve accused. 'You are a liar.'

'I’m really fine,' Bucky promised, tugging his hem down. Steve tried to peer down his collar. 'Ask JARVIS. He’s already got our files from the Chinese med team; he’ll tell you.'

'The Captain is genuinely all right, Master Rogers,' JARVIS agreed. 'His most significant injury was a mid-size second-degree burned sustained eight days ago. I am under the impression it would be healed by now.'

'And it is,' Bucky insisted. He pushed Steve’s hands away from his chest, away from the sensitive spots Steve didn’t seem to realize he was exploring. JARVIS, thankfully, hadn’t pointed out that the burn had been on his outer thigh; if Steve had started tugging at his sleep pants, Bucky didn’t know what he would do. 'Please stop undressing me in this context,' he said, almost a beg. Steve frowned and Bucky prayed he wasn’t hard under the sheets. It was so inappropriate and it had been so long. He wasn’t doubting anymore that Steve remembered the things they would have gotten up to with these soundproof walls before, but Steve hadn’t made any move past kissing. He didn’t pretend to understand why, but he had asked Melissa to check in with Steve about it with the deepest blush he’d ever felt on his face, just to make sure the kissing hadn’t been his presumption that Steve didn’t know how to get out of. It worried him; between the two of them, Steve had always had the healthier attitude towards sodomy, towards most of their relationship together. It worried Bucky that he’d found himself recently playing the role of the better-adjusted. Melissa had done so during one of their outpatient therapy sessions and had promised Bucky that Steve would explain when he was ready, but that he shouldn’t worry.

That had made him worry even more.

'I apologize,' Steve said stiffly, but sincerely. He sat back on his haunches. Bucky laid a hand on his knee, his thumb rubbing at a small fold in the loose fabric of Steve’s own sleep pants. 'Why don’t I go with you?' Steve asked after a silence.

'Um, you're an outpatient,' Bucky hedged. Steve still had some security restrictions; Sam escorted him to synagogue every Saturday, and Bucky took him to therapy. Steve didn’t want to leave the Tower often, regardless of the supervisory restrictions, because he wasn’t so damaged that he wasn’t aware of the public’s polarizing opinions of him. He accompanied Bucky on some of his liaising appointments, which bizarrely made the more difficult countries more eager to deal with him. The American public was, generously speaking, on the fence about Steve’s guilt for the Winter Soldier’s actions, but the Baltic states’ delegates Bucky met with seemed fascinated to meet Steve. They shook his hand, congratulated him on his freedom, and asked him if HYDRA was as bad as the SHIELD info dump suggested. Steve always promised them sincerely that it was worse. 'You genuinely can't come until Melissa lifts your outpatient restrictions, but I guess that doesn't mean we can't talk about it now.'

'Melissa would let me, if I asked,' Steve told him, sounding oddly sure. 'I’m much better now. She would release me as an outpatient if I asked.'

'Why do you even want to come on the next mission?' Bucky demanded. 'I mean, you’ve been thru so much. You’re just now getting better, to your new normal. Wouldn’t coming on one of these drag you back into your bad days? Why do that to yourself if you don’t have to?'

'Are you asking _me_ why I want to stop HYDRA?' Steve demanded, like Bucky was an idiot for asking. He sighed at Steve’s tone, but couldn’t help the small part of him that rejoiced at the idea that Steve had improved so much to display irritation in only a tone. He remembered Steve speaking almost in computer code, avoiding eye contact and echoing words in lieu of responding. 'You’re asking _me_?'

'Yes,' Bucky agreed, reaching up to brush his fingers thru Steve’s over-long hair. Steve let him. 'Steve, why do you want to keep fighting? I don't even want to, not really. I want us to go home, but we can't. So I guess I want to take out this evil so that my superhero abilities aren't needed anymore. Close as I can get.’

‘Stopping HYDRA is the right thing to do,' Steve said simply, and Bucky realised things had always been that simple for Steve. He had always been pigheaded and stubborn and he used to be too quick to temper, but he had always done the right thing without hesitation, no matter what the cost for him. Bucky wondered for a horrible second why he ever expected or hoped for anything less. The temper might have mostly disappeared after Steve had been brainwashed out of defending himself, but the rest of it seemed to be coming back. ‘For as long as I can remember, I just wanted to do what was right. And I don’t remember a lot, so you gotta give me this. It’s my—It should be my decision, right? It’s my choice, and I don’t get a lot of those anymore.’

‘Steve—’

‘No,’ Steve snapped, but not as harshly as he would have back in their day. ‘No, Bucky, it’s the right thing to do. I remember: I was stubborn and angry and strong, in here.’ He tapped his heart. ‘If they could turn me into the Winter Soldier, they could hurt anyone like that, and maybe they will, now that I’m out. I _can’t_ let that happen.’

'HYDRA nearly launched those helicarriers,’ Steve said. ‘If they had cut me open before sending me after you, there woulda been none of me for you to snap out of it. You wouldn’t have gotten past me.’

‘Yes, I would have,’ Bucky tried. Steve scoffed.

‘No one else did, not with the programmes they put in,’ Steve said. ‘I was effective, and failure had never been reported before. If they had followed protocol, you woulda lost. It might have been a plan, not a head, but you chopped it off.'

'You shouldn't be anywhere near a fight,' Bucky grumbled. 'The team can dismantle them without you. They won’t have time to hatch two plans to replace Insight before we get them down, at the rate we’re going.' Steve looked away and Bucky let his hand fall back to Steve’s knee, out of his hair.

'It’s not about whether you can do it without me,' Steve pointed out. 'It’s about what’s _right_ —'

'And what about what’s right for you, huh, sweetheart?' Bucky demanded. He sat up, ignoring the light twinge of strained muscles. 'Why would it be good for you to jump back into all of this?'

'Why, is it good for you?' Steve shot back, tripping a wire in Bucky. God damn, Steve had always known how to point out hypocrisy. Bucky wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he’d even pointed it out to handlers along the way.

'That’s not the same thing—' he tried.

'Yes, it is,' Steve said, rolling his eyes exactly like Pepper did. 'You went to war the first time because you were drafted. I’m the one who wanted to go, because it was right. You aren’t drafted anymore so why go fight this? If the team can do it without me, they could do it _with_ me and without you instead. You could bake.' In anyone else’s mouth, Bucky would have bristled at that, but Steve sounded sincere. ‘You could do anything other than this.’

'It’s the—all right,' Bucky snapped, cutting himself off before he could quote Steve directly. 'All right,' he grumbled. He rubbed his face hard. It was, at the end of any long, terrible day, the right thing to do. HYDRA had to be stopped, and Bucky couldn’t deny that Steve knew that better than anyone.

'I can do it,' Steve said insistently. 'Maybe not like you but like Doctor Banner.'

'What?' Bucky said, looking up. ‘What’s that mean?’ Steve shrugged, looking away.

'He doesn’t always fight,' Steve explained, 'but he’s there when you need him. I want to fight, but like Doctor Banner. I’d be there when you need me. I want to fight in all of it, really, but Melissa says compromise is important in relationships. You don’t want me at all, but we—it’s a compromise.'

'Hey,' Bucky said, moving closer. He didn’t like the way Steve’s voice went soft, the way he cut his eyes too far away. He reached out, touching Steve’s chin and pulling him face to face with Bucky. 'It’s not that I don’t want you, matoki, no.' Steve wouldn’t meet his eyes. 'Hey,' he said again, tapping his thumb gently against Steve’s chin. Blue eyes met his. 'Why would you think I don’t want you?'

'You have to do things for me, take me places,' Steve said softly, looking away again. Bucky let him go when he pulled away.  'I don’t remember much, but I remember you always taking care of me, me always being useless, and I remember things were different. I don’t know. You go away and you leave me here.'

'Fuck, Stevie,' Bucky sighed. 'No, OK, it’s not like that. I want you around so bad I’m afraid that going on one of these missions might mean you don’t come back with me. I’m afraid—Jesus, I’m afraid I’ll lose you again.'

'Do you think I’m not scared of that?' Steve nearly sobbed, breaking suddenly. Bucky wrapped an arm around Steve’s shoulders, his palm on the pauldron of his metal arm. He pulled Steve against his chest, kissing the top of his head. 'If HYDRA kills you, if they win, they’ll take me back; they’ll take me back if we don’t stop them—'

'No, they fucking won’t,' Bucky promised. 'Listen to me: you are never going back there, not even if I die, which I try my damnedest not to.' Steve's breath was hitching, trying to hold in a break of tears. Bucky could hear the stress of it heightening the whistle of Steve's airways.

'It's OK,' Bucky said, softly, unable to offer anything else. 'You're crying, Steve; breathe. People cry. You can cry.'

Steve sobbed, curling closer, and Bucky felt tears burn at his own eyes. He tightened his grip, strong as he pleased because Steve had always fit under his skin. Steve gripped him back just as firmly, an almost bruising pressure, something Bucky only felt from something of his strength, something he'd only feel from his equal.

'I have to fight,’ Steve told him, words tumbling out in a rush. ‘I fought before because they’re evil, and then they made me do all those things—’

‘Steve, it wasn’t you—’ Bucky tried, but Steve shook his head, barrelling on.

‘I can’t ask for forgiveness because those people are dead,’ Steve explained, desperate, ‘so I have to stop the people who—Just because I’m free doesn’t mean they wouldn’t take anyone else and hurt them like me, break them until they have nothing. They have to be _stopped_ ; it’s the right thing, and if you go and don’t come back, I’ll be alone and they’ll come for me—’

'I promise you’re not going back to them,' Bucky said almost forcefully. 'I always try my best to come back to you.'

'OK,' Steve agreed, trying to stop his tears. He sniffed roughly, letting out a little cough. Bucky kissed the top of his head, pulling him tighter because closer wasn’t an option.

'You’re OK,' he promised. 'I’ve got you.' They sat in silence for a while. Bucky nearly fell asleep against the headboard, exhausted from the battle, and the flight, and the narrowly avoided argument and breakdown. ‘Look, when Melissa releases you from deprogramming, we’ll find a compromise, OK?’ he whispered. ‘We’ll figure something out, OK? Until then, just try not to worry, even tho I know you will.’

‘I will,’ Steve promised, wetly. 'I love you, Bucky,' Steve murmured, seriously, shifting enough to kiss Bucky’s neck. He sighed happily, stroking Steve’s back.

'I love you, too,' he said easily. 'You know that, right?'

'I know you,' Steve replied. 'Why haven't we had sex?' Bucky coughed in surprise, his airway jolted as Steve kissed at his pulse point chastely, like he hadn’t asked a pointed and direct question.

'Um,' Bucky said, unable to reply.

'I asked Melissa,' Steve admitted, moving his lips away and resting his forehead against Bucky’s neck. Bucky was thankful for that. 'I asked her why things weren’t like before. She said you were waiting for me to be—not to be like before, but to be like before. She said it better.'

'No, I know what you mean,' Bucky said. 'I’m waiting for—I’m waiting for you to be ready,' he said, trying to explain without being indelicate. 'I’m following your lead here, Stevie.'

'I can’t lead,' Steve told him. 'I’m scared.'

'Then we wait until you’re not scared,' Bucky said simply. He did want; of course he did. Steve was beautiful, had always been, and he was Bucky’s match in more ways than one. They had been thru hell and back together and apart, and they had both lost the world Bucky still longed for. They were the only ones who really, truly, really knew each other. Of course he wanted. Every day he was with Steve, he wanted. He had wanted when wanting could have seen his life destroyed; when it would only cause an uproar in a twenty-four-hour-news cycle, when they had each other and none of the people who mattered to them would have blinked an eye, of course he still wanted. It was Steve. How could he not?

' _Lo_ ,' Steve said. 'I don’t want to wait until I’m not scared. I don’t know what I’m scared of, and what if I’m always scared of nothing?'

'You have never in your life been scared of nothing,' Bucky said, picturing Steve’s unimpressed glares in response to vague threats against him. He had never been scared of nothing, not ever. He had only ever been scared of enormous somethings, and even then, he hid it well because as a sickly, Irish, tiny Jew, he had had no choice. People had looked at him and seen uselessness; if they had seen fear instead of Steve’s rage, determination and willfulness, Steve wouldn’t have managed the few dollars a week he had. Zola’s first torture had stolen Steve’s prideful refusal to admit defeat; becoming the asset had stolen Steve’s temper, even if Bucky sometimes thought hints of it were coming back with Steve’s Swiss-cheese memory. He wondered what he had lost; he wondered if Steve remembered enough to be able to really know how Bucky was different.

'I’m scared, but I’m not scared of you,' Steve explained into Bucky’s collarbone. 'I don’t—I don’t remember what I’m scared of. I can’t remember; it’s so close, but I don’t know. I remember being with you before, just flashes and it’s nice and warm and ours. I don’t remember how—I can’t lead; I don’t remember.'

'I know you won’t hurt me, not on purpose,' Steve said, 'not ever, so I’m not scared of you. But I am scared.'

'I don’t want to do things that make you scared,' Bucky tried, but Steve interrupted.

'I want you to do things,' Steve insisted. 'I want you; I just don’t know how. I don’t know how, Bucky. If you don’t want, I don’t but I do, you know? I want.'

'OK,' Bucky said, because he had always wanted to give Steve everything, give him blue skies and better lungs and a chance at the good life. He hadn’t been able to do it all, but this he could do. 'Not tonight,' he added, because Steve’s lashes were still wet from tears and his own weren’t better off. 'But OK. I’ll—I’ll lead.'

'Promise?' Steve asked, tilting his head to look up at Bucky. Bucky kissed him, gentle and chaste.

'You’re wringing quite a few promises from a man you called a liar,' Bucky accused, smiling against Steve’s mouth.

'You’re my best girl,' Steve reminded him. 'Y’always have been. I can do what I want.' 

 


End file.
